Respiratory Care

At Black River Memorial Hospital, our Respiratory Care Department provides testing and treatments to preserve and improve overall lung function.

Our respiratory therapy staff can help you manage asthma and sleep disordered breathing and can even help you quit smoking.

Diagnostics

Whether it's general lung function or a sleep disorder, we have several ways to diagnose your specific respiratory condition.

For lung function, our Respiratory Care Department will conduct Pulmonary Function Tests to see how your lungs take in and release air and how well they distribute oxygen into the blood stream.

For sleep disorders, we not only have a fully equipped Sleep Lab, but we also have a variety of outpatient sleep tests.

The Apnea Link is a device patients wear for one night at home that helps us screen for sleep disordered breathing by collecting data on:

• Respiratory nasal air flow
• Snoring
• Pulse

An Oximetry Test is a commonly used at-home screening that provides basic information useful for an initial sleep disorder evaluation. This device records data about heart rate and blood oxygen saturation and will show abnormal drops in oxygen and abnormal increases in heart rate.

Durable Medical Equipment

Our respiratory staff also provides respiratory homecare services and durable respiratory medical equipment and supplies for home use, including:

• Oxygen concentrators
• Portable Oxygen
• Nebulizers and supplies
• CPAP/BiPAP with masks and supplies

Better Breather's Club

This free support group meets every other month and allows patients to stay connected with the respiratory team, ask questions after they finish therapy and continue to expand their knowledge of their respiratory condition. See our Events and Classes calendar for the next meeting time.

For more information on our respiratory care services call 715-284-3670.