Symptoms and Signs

Dyspnea is a general term used to characterize a range of qualitatively distinct descriptors which may contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms of dyspnea. In general the language of dyspnea complements physiological measurements, essential to a comprehensive understanding of exercise tolerance and dyspnea. Like leg exercise, arm exercise is associated with increased dynamic hyperinflation which correlates with increases in dyspnea, and arm effort in moderately to severely obstructed patients. These patients speak in an interrupted fashion, unable to sustain long sentence because the downstream excursion in end expiratory lung volume is likely to increase the amount of tidal expiratory flow limitation and dyspnea. Patients often spontaneously employ breathing retraining strategies to relieve dyspnea. Pursed-lip breathing, impacts on dyspnea by decreasing end expiratory volumes of the chest wall. Finally, a method is proposed to quantify the presence and degree of Hoover's sign and evaluate the agreement between clinical and quantitative analysis.