Respiratory care practitioners (respiratory therapist or respiratory therapy technicians) treat all patients with breathing difficulties or any other cardiopulmonary disease.
Respiratory therapists follow specific procedures. They first ask the physician and other specialists to create the best procedure. They also evaluate their patients with several tests like a physical evaluation, breathing capacity to determine the concentration of oxygen and other gases in the blood.
To treat respiratory disorders, respiratory therapy technicians use different techniques, such as oxygen and oxygen mixtures, chest treatment and putting oxygen mask to set the oxygen level in the blood as the specialist requires. They also change the ventilator setting according to the doctor?s specification.
Respiratory Care Practitioners carry out the chest therapy to remove all the mucus, which prevents the possibility of any congestion during the surgery. They also use aerosols or liquid medications that the patient can inhale.
Respiratory care practitioners also draw blood samples from patients, taking electrocardiograms and performing stress tests.
A respiratory therapist usually works 40 hours a week in several shifts such as evenings, nights or weekends. Some of the jobs require traveling to the patient?s home or to hospitals.
More than 112,000 Respiratory therapists were employed in 2002. Most of the jobs are in hospitals respiratory care departments and on supply respiratory equipment rental.
Most of the older Americans have respiratory disorders and some cardiopulmonary ailments like pneumonia, emphysema, bronchitis and heart ailments. If this number increases, more respiratory care practitioner?s services will be need.
Respiratory care practitioners earn more that $40,220 to 54,130 per year.
Some other occupations that respiratory therapist can do are physician supervisor, or administer respiratory care.