Question for the PFT Folks: How would you coach this?
This was meant to be an SVC maneuver, but no matter how much we tried, we could not get this patient to reach their ERV on the maximal expiration. The patient had difficulty understanding other parts of the PFT as well, but we wanted to at least get one solid SVC (with ERV) before we gave up.
This was performed in Breeze, and I'm 99% certain that Breeze just measures "lowest point to highest point" for SVC, but an attempt like this completely throws off our IC and ERV measurements.
I tried coaching the patient to take relaxed, easy breaths during the tidal volume phase. I also tried to account for possible glottic closure by telling them to avoid "closing your throat when you blow out."
The patient did have a BMi of 73, but I didn't want to completely attribute the tracing to body habitus since I do occasionally see this with other patients.
So I guess my question is: in general, how do you deal with situations where the patient is seemingly unable to exhale beyond their tidal volume?