Lung function Test

Almost all, if not all occupations require the proper functioning of a person’s lungs. There are certain jobs however, that expose the lungs to certain chemical / environmental hazards that may harm and eventually destroy one’s lungs.

Lung function tests serve to check the state and capacity of a person’s lungs. The entire test utilizes a battery of procedures that measures everything the lungs of a patient can do, from the lung capacity to the carbon dioxide content of your lungs’ air sacs.

The first kind of lung function test is called spirometry. This test measures just how fast you can inhale and exhale air, measuring the amount of air you can exhale after inhaling deeply, the amount of air you can exhale after one normal breath, the flow of air through your bronchial tubes throughout the act of exhalation, and a variety of other statistics that could determine the state of your lungs’ ability to inhale and exhale.

Residual volume tests and gas diffusion tests generally test for the residual air left in your lungs after inhalation. The former test measures how much of a certain gas, say helium or pure oxygen, stays in your lungs after inhaling and exhaling from a device that measures the resultant concentration of the previously inhaled substance. The latter, meanwhile, is a bit more invasive, requiring blood samples from the alveoli within your lungs.

Other tests, such as stress tests and inhalation tests, also measure the capacity of a person’s lungs to work under pressure.