Breathing Difficulties First Aid: A Senior Safety Guide

First Aid

If someone is having breathing difficulty, call 911 or your local emergency number right away, then:

• Check the person’s airway, breathing, and pulse. If necessary, begin

  CPR

  .

• Loosen any tight clothing.
• Help the person use any prescribed medicine (such as an asthma inhaler, nitroglycerin, or home oxygen).
• Continue to monitor the person’s breathing and pulse until medical help arrives. Do not assume that the person’s condition is improving if you can no longer hear abnormal breath sounds, such as wheezing.
• If there are open wounds in the neck or chest, they must be closed immediately, especially if air bubbles appear in the wound. Bandage such wounds at once.
• A sucking chest wound allows air to enter the person’s chest cavity with each breath. This can cause a

  collapsed lung

  . Bandage the wound with plastic wrap, a plastic bag, or gauze pads covered with petroleum jelly, sealing it on three sides, leaving one side unsealed. This creates a valve to prevent air from entering the chest through the wound, while allowing trapped air to escape from the chest through the unsealed side.

DO NOT?

Do not:

• Give the person food or drink.
• Move the person if there has been a head, neck, chest or airway injury, unless it is absolutely necessary. Protect and stabilize the neck if the person must be moved.
• Place a pillow under the person’s head. This can close the airway.
• Wait to see if the person’s condition improves before getting medical help. Get help immediately.

When to Contact a Medical Professional?

Call 911 or your local emergency number if you or someone else has any of the symptoms of difficult breathing, in the

section above.

Also, contact your health care provider right away if you:

• Have a

  cold

  or other respiratory infection and are having difficulty breathing

• Have a

  cough

  that does not go away after 2 or 3 weeks

• Are coughing up blood
• Are

  losing weight

  without meaning to or having night sweats

• Cannot get to sleep or wake up at night because of breathing difficulty
• Notice it is hard to breathe when doing things that you normally do without breathing difficulty, for example, climbing stairs

Also contact your provider if your child has a cough and is making a barking sound or wheezing.

How Is It Prevented?

Some things you can do to help prevent breathing problems:

• If you have a history of severe allergic reactions, carry an epinephrine pen and wear a medical alert tag. Your provider will teach you how to use the epinephrine pen.
• If you have

  asthma

  or allergies, eliminate household allergy triggers like dust mites and mold.

• Do not smoke, and keep away from secondhand smoke. Do not allow smoking in your home.
• If you have asthma, see the article on asthma to learn ways to manage it.
• Make sure your child gets the whooping cough (pertussis), influenza, COVID-19, and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) vaccines if appropriate.
• Make sure your tetanus booster, influenza, pneumococcal and COVID-19 vaccines are up to date.
• When traveling by airplane, get up and walk around every few hours to avoid forming blood clots in your legs. Once formed, clots can break off and lodge in your lungs. While seated, do ankle circles and raise and lower your heels, toes, and knees to increase blood flow in your legs. If traveling by car, stop and get out and walk around regularly.
• If you are

  overweight

  , lose weight. You are more likely to feel winded if you are overweight. You are also at greater risk for heart disease and heart attack.

Wear a medical alert tag if you have a pre-existing breathing condition, such as asthma.