Respiratory Therapy

This program presents stethoscope use for lung auscultation, the physiology of normal breath sounds, selected landmarks used for auscultation, and the basic procedures for a pulmonary auscultation assessment. It differentiates tracheal breath sounds, bronchial breath sounds, bronchovesicular breath sounds, and vesicular breath sounds and identifies anterior and posterior landmarks for breath sounds.

This program covers the qualities of breath sounds, abnormal breath sounds, and some of their associated conditions and teaches how to document findings. Because auscultation is a subjective assessment, breath sounds are described using terminology standardized by the American Thoracic Society. It identifies common causes of abnormal breath sounds, looking specifically at three abnormal vocal sounds.