{"id":605,"date":"2008-10-08T10:05:11","date_gmt":"2008-10-08T15:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2008\/10\/08\/how-to-use-an-incentive-spirometer\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T08:05:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T13:05:03","slug":"how-to-use-an-incentive-spirometer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2008\/10\/08\/how-to-use-an-incentive-spirometer\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;How To Use An Incentive Spirometer?&#8221; asks Laura Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Laura Lee is getting ready for her valve surgery. In anticipation of her recovery, she asked me, &#8220;Would you please tell me how to use the incentive spirometer so I can start practicing? Thanks for everything! Laura Lee&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To help Laura Lee, I just found this instructional video on how to use an incentive spirometer from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/hospital\/usc-heart-valve-clinic-starnes\">Keck Medicine of USC<\/a> in Los Angeles, California. Fyi, I had my double heart valve surgery at USC nearly 20 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RZweq_SKLTA?si=jb67nsPXWPXyXa20\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I was also able to find some helpful instructions on <a href=\"https:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/health\/drugs\/4302-incentive-spirometer\">how to use the incentive spirometer from the Cleveland Clinic<\/a> and my own personal experience:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Place the mouthpiece in your mouth with your lips tightly sealed around it. Do not let your tongue block the mouthpiece.<\/li>\n<li>Inhale (breathe in) slowly and deeply through the mouthpiece to raise the indicator. Try to make the indicator rise up to the level of the target pointer. This is the goal that you need to reach.<\/li>\n<li>Note the highest level that the indicator has reached.<\/li>\n<li>When you cannot inhale any longer, remove the mouthpiece and hold your breath for at least three seconds.<\/li>\n<li>Exhale normally.<\/li>\n<li>Repeat these steps 5 to 10 times every hour when awake, or as often as caregivers tell you to.<\/li>\n<li>After each session, try to cough out the sputum (mucus) from your lungs. This is done by inhaling deeply and pushing the air out of your lungs with a deep, strong cough.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/adam-wheelchair-2.jpg\" alt=\"Patient Using Incentive Sprimoter In Hospital\" width=\"175\" height=\"161\" \/><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\">Me (Adam) Using The Incentive Spirometer<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To achieve the key benefits of using the incentive spirometer and avoid fluid in your lungs, please remember to use the device consistently. At the same time, you do not want to enhale too deeply, too quickly or you may experience discomfort and\/or pain.<\/p>\n<p>Related Links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/incentive-spirometer-benefits-lungs-surgery.php\">Incentive Spirometer: Patient Benefits<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2007\/12\/13\/fluid-in-lungs-after-heart-valve-surgery\/\">Fluid in Lungs After Heart Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/pleural-effusion.php\">Pleural Effusions: What Should Patients Know?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/weight-gain-after-surgery\/\">Weight Gain After Heart Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I hope this helps Laura Lee and you effectively use an incentive spirometer during your recovery.<\/p>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recovery"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41091,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions\/41091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}