Friction Loss in Oxygen Tubing?

[Guest guest]

We have all been on difficulty breathing calls where there is a patient on

oxygen by nasal cannula via an oxygen concentrator in the home. The delivery

rate is generally 2 LPM and quite predictably there is 25 (yeah right, more like

100) or more feet of extension tubing between the concentrator and the patient.

My initial “treatment” is to either remove the miles of extension tubing or to

simply turn the delivery rate way up. This usually “fixes” the problem. Then I

attempt to educate the patient and / or the family about the loss of flow over

that length of tubing.

In firefighting there is a calculable loss of pressure over a given distance

in a given diameter of hose at a given pressure. My question is: What is the

friction loss on oxygen tubing? Is anyone aware of a table or other documented

way to calculate this?

Here are a couple of internet resources I found on the subject. The

second is listed in the first but deals with cubic feet and much larger pipe not

LPM or oxygen tubing. I am a little tired, so I didn't even attempt to make

conversions (I assume they could be done with the right mathematical genius

running the show) with the tables' information (maybe one of you rocket

scientists can).

http://forums.firehouse.com/showthread.php?t=66431

http://www.aquatext.com/tables/frict-air.htm

In asylum,

E. Tate, LP

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[Guest guest]

You forgot to mention the part of asking the patient to get rid of the cigarette

dangling from the corner of his/her mouth, right? >

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