Chest
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A 40-year-old woman who worked on a farm and was exposed to moldy hay presented with acute respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation and homogeneous radiologic consolidation. Treatment with steroids produced rapid improvement. These features of presentation of hypersensitivity pneumonitis with acute respiratory failure and homogeneous consolidation are rarely encountered.
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Respiratory rate is a sensitive clinical parameter in a multitude of pulmonary diseases, especially in the critical care setting. In order to validate the routine recording of the respiratory rate in the intensive care unit, we compared the values obtained from the nursing records with the breathing frequency continuously recorded by a prototype microprocessor system using respiratory inductive plethysmography. We found a significant (greater than or equal to 20 percent) error in the staff's monitoring of respiratory rate one third of the time. In addition, we demonstrated the ease and reliability of using this prototype system as a continuous, noninvasive, long-term respiratory monitor in the intensive care unit.