Medications to Treat Bronchoconstriction (Nursing)

00:00 Hi! Welcome to one of our videos on respiratory medications.

00:05 In this video, we're gonna talk about the kind of medications that treat one of the two problems with asthma.

00:11 We're gonna drill down and look up bronchoconstriction.

00:15 Medications that treat bronchoconstriction go after the beta-2 receptors.

00:20 So the beta-2 receptor's job, they're located on your lungs and their job is to bronchodilate.

00:26 So when I put an agonist unto a beta-2 receptor, that's what I'm gonna get.

00:31 It mimics what happens in your sympathetic nevous system when it's stimulated.

00:35 Now the side effects of beta-2 can be really tough for your patients to deal with.

00:40 They have that tachycardia, that super fast heart rate.

00:44 And then they have chest pain and can have chest pain, now not everyone has it but they can have some tremors.

00:49 So let me back that up and talk to you about it.

00:52 Sympathetic nervous system is your body's response when it realizes it needs... it just gotta have to do something that causes them to exert themselves.

01:00 So if I'm going to exert myself, I need more oxygen, that's why I bronchodilate.

01:06 In a patient with asthma or COPD, when they need to bronchodilate, if we stimulate those same receptors, the beta-2s from the sympathetic nervous system, we're gonna get them more air, more ability to breathe and that's why we use them.

01:21 Because those receptors are located on the bronchial smooth muscle and also on the uterine muscle, now we're not gonna focus in the uterus because that's not part with this video series.

01:32 But for this case, we're looking at the beta-2 receptors on the bronchial smooth muscles of your lungs.

01:38 When that smooth muscle relaxes, the lungs bronchodilate and the airways become larger so you are gonna able to get air in more easily.

01:46 Now the uterine reaction, we'll talk about that relaxation, we'll talk about that in another video.

01:52 But for now, we're gonna focus on the role of beta-2 receptors and how they work in the lungs to help bronchodilate.

02:00 Okay, we've got a great picture there for you of that bronchoconstriction.

02:06 You can see that it's really clamping down on the airway.

02:09 That's part of that smooth muscle reaction.

02:11 So first of all, emergency medication rescue inhalers.

02:14 You need to recognize these names: Albuterol and Levalbuterol.

02:18 These are medications that are called short acting beta-2 adrenergic agonist.

02:23 Why? because they kick in really quickly.

02:26 And I don't know about you but if I can't breathe, I don't wanna wait around for me to be able to breathe again.

02:32 I want it to kick in really quick.

02:34 These are life saving or rescue medications.

02:38 So make sure you star those, encircle those and you commit that to memory that these are examples of Short-acting beta-2 adrenergic agonist that we would use in an emergency.

02:49 So when I can't breathe, give me a medication that mimics the agonist in my body that hit those beta-2 receptors and cause bronchodilation.

02:58 Now, I can also inhale long acting and that's why they get their name LABAs Long-acting Beta-2 Agonist Now I've listed the names for you there and you'll notice that they also end in -EROL.

03:11 Now we'll keep hitting these concepts over and over again, these respiratory medication videos because they are critically important.

03:19 So we use these 2 groups SABAs and LABAs to help us relieve that bronchoconstriction by bronchodilating for the patient, but I only use SABAs for a rescue inhaler, when the patient's really in need.

03:33 Now on this slide you see that sometimes we use combination drugs and those can also be helpful.

03:38 Here we've got a beta agonist and we've combined it with another medication that will help with bronchoconstriction.

03:44 Methylxanthines used to be used a lot but not used as much anymore like Theophylline or Aminophylline.

03:50 They really can be rough on your patient, they have side effects where they really are shaky and tremors.

03:55 And also we have to monitor lab values, their blood levels with this medication.

04:00 So if we can avoid it, this is predominantly not the main drug that we prescribe anymore