Welcome to the Dyspnea Center!
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If you are interested in Dyspnea Research, please save the dates for
this
event:
Friday
May 15th and Saturday May 16th, 2009
International Dyspnea Symposium
San Diego, California
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We have established the Dyspnea Center
to
address three goals:
1. To provide care for
patients with
shortness of breath in difficult cases.
2. To conduct research.
3. To provide information
and
training for caregivers and patients.
'Shortness of breath', also called
'breathlessness' or dyspnea is a common symptom of lung or heart
disease.
Shortness of breath is a very important and useful warning of serious
disease,
and should not be ignored. On the other hand, when the disease has been
diagnosed and is being controlled, persistent shortness of breath can
interfere
greatly with quality of life. In these cases we try to relieve the
symptom
DYSPNEA RESEARCH LAB
(Robert B. Banzett PI)
Our laboratory is working to discover the basic neural mechanisms that
underlie
the symptom of dyspnea (shortness of breath, breathlessness). We use
methods
from respiratory physiology, psychology, and neuroscience. Our current
work
includes functional brain imaging (Functional MRI and Positron Emission
Tomography) to find the centers responsible for dyspnea perception,
psychophysical measurement of dyspnea in patients with neural lesions
to
determine sensory input pathways, and study of drugs and other
interventions to
modify the perception of dyspnea.
WHAT IS DYSPNEA AND WHY DO WE NEED TO STUDY IT?
"Doc, I can't breathe!" -- The experience of not being able to breathe is very unpleasant and can be frightening. The sensation that something is wrong with your breathing is termed 'shortness of breath' or 'dyspnea'. Most of us only feel short of breath when we do things like running up 5 flights of stairs or holding our breath under water. In this case the 'cure' is easy! slow down, start breathing. However, dyspnea is a very important symptom of lung and heart disease. This symptom, like pain, is both useful and problematic. Dyspnea is useful because it is often the only warning of serious lung or heart disease. On the other hand, dyspnea is very unpleasant and there are many times that we would like to provide relief to improve quality of life (just as we provide pain relief), but we currently have no good tools to provide dyspnea relief. The problem is a big one: dyspnea is actually as common as pain in serious disease. Half of seriously ill patients admitted to tertiary care hospitals report pain, an equal number report dyspnea. Many patients suffer from both of these debilitating symptoms. In the final stages of terminal illness, the problem of dyspnea often increases while pain decreases (due to effective treatment). In addition, many patients experience dyspnea with no obvious organic cause. We know much less about dyspnea than we know about pain mechanisms and pain relief probably because there are fewer scientists studying dyspnea; one aim of this web site is to encourage young scientists to consider training in this field.
We have published a short review which is available on the web at the Bulletin of the American Pain Society http://www.ampainsoc.org/pub/bulletin/mar01/upda1.htm
(Please note: we are a research lab and are not equipped to deal with individual medical problems. We suggest you see a pulmonary physician or cardiologist. In the Boston area there is a specialized clinic for dyspnea run by our colleague Dr. Richard Schwartzstein. Several other such clinics exist at major medical centers elsewhere in the US.