PNEUMOTHORAX vs TENSION PNEUMOTHORAX

Hey there, friend. In this video, we are going to talk about the differences between a pneumothorax and a tension pneumothorax. And make sure that you stick around until the very end of the video. Because, of course, I have got a really great memory trick to help you remember this. What's up? My friend Christina here with nursing schoolofsuccess.com here to help you both raise your grades and have more free time to spend with your family during nursing school. It's totally possible. So make sure that you hit that subscribe button and click on the little bell so that you never miss a video. So we're going to start with a pneumothorax. Just your run of the mill pneumothorax. Now, this happens when there is a hole in the pleural space, the space surrounding the lungs. Now, this is the pleural space. So there is this thin space between the lungs and the chest, and that is the plural pleural space. So when there's a hole in the pleural space, air from the lungs or from outside can leak into it, causing air to get into that pleural space around the lungs, which can't be good, right? So when there's air outside of the lung, that lung actually shrinks, it collapses and it can't expand as much anymore. Now, the key thing about a pneumothorax is that air can still move in and out of that pleural space. So when you inhale, air moves in into the pleural space, and when you exhale, air moves out of that pleural space. And during a pneumothorax, as air fills that pleural space, the lung can collapse because of those differences in that air pressure. Now, there are two types of a pneumothorax that you need to know about in nursing school. An open pneumothorax and a closed pneumothorax. So in an open pneumothorax, there is an opening in that pleural space from outside side of the body. So that is a wound that is open to the outside. Now, this can be caused by anything that pierces the chest, like a stab wound or other kind of trauma. Now, the other type of a pneumothorax is a closed pneumothorax. And this happens when there is no outside wound. So the injury happened inside of the body. So this can happen with things like a rib fracture. If the rib pierces into that pleural space, or it can also just happen spontaneously. Now, here's where things get a little tricky. A tension pneumothorax is that same thing as a pneumothorax. There's a hole in that pleural space, except air cannot escape. So during inhalation, air goes in, but during exhalation, it can't get out. So every time you inhale, more and more air gets trapped in that pleural space and everything inside the chest gets squished. There's more and more air surrounding the lungs. Now, there's only so much space inside the chest. So if it's all filled with air, the lungs get compressed, the blood vessels get compressed, and the heart gets compressed. So a tension pneumothorax is life threatening, my friend. It's a medical emergency that requires immediate medical attention. That air's gotta come out or the heart can't pump, the blood vessels get squished and the lungs collapse. So obviously, that is no good. Now, one thing I do want to note here, because nursing instructors love to test you on this, is that during a tension pneumothorax, it can cause the trachea to shift to the unaffected side. And I have a really, really, really easy way for you to remember this. When you think tension pneumothorax, think trachea push. So TP and tv tension pneumothorax, trachea push. So during a tension pneumothorax, the trachea right here is going to be pushed to the unaffected side. Now, if this little memory trick helped you to remember that, write love in the comments below. Now click on the next video that we've got for you so you can continue to rock n school and I will see you in the next video.