Pulmonary atelectasis is one of the common complications in the early postoperative period, which has many causes, such as limited respiratory activity, difficulty in coughing up sputum, and obstruction of secretions.
1. Restricted respiratory activity: patients are afraid to take a deep breath and cough due to postoperative pain, so they have difficulty in coughing, resulting in restricted respiratory movement. In this case, the patient should be treated with oxygen.
2. Difficulty in coughing up sputum: it occurs mostly in the elderly or younger children, the operation time is long, which leads to numbness of the body, and the difficulty in coughing up sputum leads to the phenomenon of pulmonary atelectasis. In this case, nebulization can be given to the patient.
3. Obstruction of secretion: Due to the long time anesthesia during the operation, the bronchial secretion is not easy to be discharged and obstruction occurs, and the phenomenon of lung atelectasis will occur. If necessary, suction treatment will be carried out.
Lung atelectasis may cause lung infection, pleural effusion, respiratory failure and so on. Patients are advised to actively cooperate with the treatment according to the cause and are encouraged to perform functional exercises. In case of particularly severe pulmonary atelectasis, medication or surgery can be performed in conjunction with the patient’s own condition.