Compliance, Elasticity, and Airway Resistance

Vocabulary flashcards covering the physiological mechanisms, pathology, and mechanics of compliance, elasticity, surface tension, and airway resistance in the respiratory system.

Compliance

The ability of a tissue or structure to stretch. comes from elastic recoil of lungs and chest wall, surface tension from the fluid-filled alveoli.

Elasticity

The ability of a tissue or structure to spring back to its resting length after being stretched (also known as elastic recoil).

Elastic Recoil

A passive force through which stretched tissues, such as muscles, lungs, and ligaments, naturally return to their resting length.

Boyle's Law

A physical principle describing the inverse relationship between volume and pressure: when lung volume increases, pressure decreases; when lung volume decreases, pressure increases.

Abnormally High Lung Compliance

A state where lung tissues stretch too easily and lose elastic recoil, leading to difficulty exhaling.

Abnormally Low Lung Compliance

A state where lung tissues are stiff, do not stretch easily, and have too much elastic recoil, leading to difficulty inhaling.

Emphysema

A condition involving the destruction of alveolar tissue that results in abnormally high compliance, loss of elastic recoil, difficulty exhaling, and air trapping in the lungs.

Air Trapping

The retention of air inside the lungs during exhalation, commonly caused by high compliance and impaired elastic recoil in emphysema.

Fibrosis

A condition characterized by lung tissue becoming tougher, resulting in low compliance, difficulty inhaling, and shallow, restricted breathing.

Pulmonary Edema

Tissue swelling in the lungs that reduces compliance, making it too easy to exhale but difficult to inhale.

Surface Tension

An attractive force that keeps water molecules as close as possible; inside fluid-lined alveoli, it pulls inward to contract the sacs and increases elastic recoil.

Chest wall compliance

expanding and contracting the rib cage . Too stretch, high compliance. Low respiration muscle tone and connective diseases can cause this.. Not stretch enough, low compliance, spinal or ribcage structural abnormatlitles, high respiration muscle tone (spasms)

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

A connective tissue disorder that causes abnormally high chest wall compliance due to overly stretchy tissues.

Low Respiratory Muscle Tone

A condition associated with lower motor neuron diseases and many dysarthrias that causes abnormally high chest wall compliance.

High Respiratory Muscle Tone

A condition resulting from spasms or tetanus that causes abnormally low chest wall compliance by making the chest wall too stiff.

Airway Resistance

The opposition to airflow through respiratory passages, determining the amount of air pressure needed to move air through the airway. if resistance increase there’s more pressure needed to move air flow through. Length and radius affect resistance. If it narrows airway resistance increases, asthma bronchitis, lung cancer creating masss, mucous build up

Linear Effect on Resistance

The relationship between airway length and airway resistance, where changing the length (like comparing a long straw to a short straw) produces a direct, linear change in resistance.

Exponential Effect on Resistance

The relationship between airway radius and airway resistance, where narrowing the radius (like comparing a boba straw to a coffee stirrer) exponentially increases resistance.

Compliance 3 components

lung compliance, chest wall compliance, airway resistance

Trachea vs bronchioles resitance

High resistance in trachea only one tube, bronchioles there’s many pathways to distribute airflow, leading to lower overall resistance.