What is ARDS?

Mindy's condition remains the same but Dan wanted to pass on a website that describes ARDS (Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome) which is the lung condition that Mindy is currently fighting. A brief synopsis of ARDS follows:

Adult (or Acute) Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) is a medical condition which prevents the normal breathing process from taking place. ARDS occurs when there is severe inflammation in both lungs resulting in an inability of the lungs to function properly. ARDS is a devastating inflammatory lung condition that usually occurs in conjunction with catastrophic medical conditions, such as pneumonia, shock, sepsis (or severe infection throughout the body, sometimes also referred to as systemic infection, and may include or also be called a blood or blood-borne infection), and trauma. It is a form of sudden and often severe lung failure. Lung failure means that the lungs can no longer carry out their normal function of getting oxygen into the blood and removing carbon dioxide from the body. ARDS patients may recover in a relatively short period of time and suffer little if any damage to the lungs. More often, there is a very protracted period of battle with varying levels of lung damage which may require extensive physical and pulmonary rehabilitation. The outcome of patients at this chronic stage depends on reversing the inflammation and preventing or treating further complications, such as infection.

For more information, refer to http://www.ards.org/learnaboutards/whatisards/brochure/.

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