Home Oxygen

[tonycondon]

My Grandma, about 72 yrs old, is on oxygen 24 hrs a day. She smoked for a good 40 yrs of her life, quit about 10 years ago. Regardless she is more or less ticked at the fact that she has to be tethered to a tank all the time. Mostly she gets annoyed (understandably) because her 100 foot long oxygen line snags on every chair, table and whatever else around the house, then she gets a nice whiplash. It doesn't help matters that she is legally blind and has a tough time routing the hose all over the house.

Is there any system that features an inertial reel from the source to a sort of belt junction box and then a line from the junction box to the cannula? or any other clever solutions?

 

[Bob Noel]

When my grandmother needed O2, we used small plastic hooks to have the line
raised up near the ceiling rather than having it near the ground. But Gram wasn't
blind and was able to get around reasonable well (until the last few weeks of her
life).

Good luck.

I might need something like that for my father pretty soon

 

[ClimbnSink]

Rearrange the furniture. I think my dad's hose was tacked up on the wall for the initial run(kept the noisy machine in another room.) He wasn't running around the house at that point, I don't recall any major PIA with the hoses. Figure out where she goes and try to create snag free paths without sacking all the stuff that makes home home.

 

[SCCutler]

Antonio, for the last ten years or so of her life, my mom was on O2, and she also had the long tubes to the big tank in her bedroom - you could always find her. But, she also had the portable unit with the puffer that she could sling over her shoulder like a handbag - would that be more convenient?

 

[tonycondon]

grandma does have the portable tanks. i think she probably prefers to run the machine in her bedroom instead of having to always be getting tanks refilled. she takes the portable tanks with her when she gets out of the house.

for the time being she is still babysitting her latest great grandchild a few days a week. baby is about 6 months old. not crawling yet. grandma has always been a pretty active lady and isnt going to be too happy to just sit all day. she'll give the doctor the middle finger and throw the cannula on the floor a long time before that happens.

 

[SCCutler]

My mom had the portable puffer unit which recharged when it was placed on the big tank in her bedroom. It did not look at all like a tank, quite a bit smaller.

 

[AdamZ]

Tony since your GM is go active has she considered either the lung reduction surgery or the new lung capacity reduction which is done through endoscapy and not surgery? Its been pioneered here in Philly and if she's a candiate it seems promising from a purely ancedotal point of view.

 

[Doggtyred]

My Grandma, about 72 yrs old, is on oxygen 24 hrs a day. She smoked for a good 40 yrs of her life, quit about 10 years ago. Regardless she is more or less ticked at the fact that she has to be tethered to a tank all the time. Mostly she gets annoyed (understandably) because her 100 foot long oxygen line snags on every chair, table and whatever else around the house, then she gets a nice whiplash. It doesn't help matters that she is legally blind and has a tough time routing the hose all over the house.

Is there any system that features an inertial reel from the source to a sort of belt junction box and then a line from the junction box to the cannula? or any other clever solutions?

The most practical solution from a mobility standpoint is a small liquid oxygen tank that refills from a BIG lox tank.. She carries the small LOX tank wherever she goes.

The downside is cost (over that of a line powered concentrator, which squeezes the nitrogen out of room air and gives that as concentrated oxygen down the cannula).

I dont know of any retractable lanyard arrangements.

Dave

 

[slowjoe]

How about using an inertial reel from a long extension cord? I don't know how strong the O2 line is, but it seems like it may work.

 

[gismo]

How about using an inertial reel from a long extension cord? I don't know how strong the O2 line is, but it seems like it may work.

I'm thinking that a spring loaded reel would be rather impractical as this would mean a straight line from the reel to the patient lest the line snag everything it got near due to the constant tension on the line. I'd lean towards some sort of portable rig that either could be refilled from the fixed concentrator or involved a battery powered concentrator that you carry or drag along behind you like a canister vacuum cleaner when moving around.

When I was looking into the possibility of using a concentrator in my airplane in lieu of an oxygen tank, I did find some portable battery powered ones.

 

[AdamZ]

Dave aren't you in respiratory therapy?

 

[Ted]

When I was looking into the possibility of using a concentrator in my airplane in lieu of an oxygen tank, I did find some portable battery powered ones.

Out of curiosity, what ended up being the reason for sticking with the conventional oxygen tank?

 

[gismo]

Out of curiosity, what ended up being the reason for sticking with the conventional oxygen tank?

Cost, weight, and bulk. Cost was the biggest factor given that I normally don't go through more than two or three $15 tank fills per year. Even if I used more, putting together my own filling system with two large tanks would be more cost effective than a concentrator carried in the plane. Also I wasn't able to determine if any of the portable units could deliver sufficient O2 above 13,000 MSL. I do know that they work at typical airline cabin altitudes.

 

[Doggtyred]

Dave aren't you in respiratory therapy?

Paramedic for 19 or so years, ICU and ER Nurse for the past 10 years, with the last year being in the Cardiac Cath lab. Sprinkle in 10 years of being a volunteer firefighter in there on the front end too.

But no, not a respiratory terrorist..

 

[Doggtyred]

How about using an inertial reel from a long extension cord? I don't know how strong the O2 line is, but it seems like it may work.

The cannula's connect to barbed fittings that require very little force to disconnect. The tensile strength of the tubing itself is not the limiting factor.

 

[Doggtyred]

grandma does have the portable tanks. i think she probably prefers to run the machine in her bedroom instead of having to always be getting tanks refilled. she takes the portable tanks with her when she gets out of the house.

So.. to be completely objective, she has the solution on hand, but chooses not to use it for whatever reason.

At this stage of the game, its a tradeoff. If shes become oxygen dependent, she can choose to lug a tank (which they do make relatively light nowadays) or drag a hose behind her.

You didnt clarify if she used compressed gas in steel (heavy) or aluminum (lighter) tanks or if she uses a transfillable liquid oxygen portable unit (ultralight), which docks to a bigger station (about the size of one to two stacked beer kegs) for refilling. You carry the transfillable LOX unit like a purse over the shoulder.

I do not know the cost implications for such an option, but I've seen it used by fairly active patients.

 

[SCCutler]

That last thing Dave describes is what my mom used; worked very well.

 

[tonycondon]

she does use aluminum tanks. in fact they look to me to be about the same as used in "bailout" bottles for aviation use. they give her 3-4 hours i think. she does not have a LOX tank in the house, the local pharmacy fills the tanks for her, im sure at some price.

 

[bbchien]

Can't use a portable concentrator, no?