Medical types - what is "decrepitation"?

[yambabe]

Someone very close to me was taken into hospital yesterday.

So following a day of xrays and tests I finally get to speak to the consultant at about 9pm last night.

He advises me that all the tests etc are pointing to an advanced stage of COPD. Great.

Now while he is examining her he is saying stuff out loud that a junior doc is writing down in her notes. One of the things he mentions is that there is "decrepitation" in the lungs, up to nearly the mid-point. I don't query this as I assume I know what it means - pretty much decay of the lung tuissue, withering and dieing right?

It would appear not. According to google, decrepitation is when crystalline substances crackle under heat. Surely this wouldn't be happening in someone's lungs?

Can anyone shed some light for me? I've not been able to speak to the doc again so far today and it's worrying me a lot.
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[sagiliam]

Firstly, sorry to hear that. Hope you are ok.
i'm no medical expert though so i could be compleeetly wrong, but anyway, what i can gather is that i believe it may be something related to the effects of the mycobacterium (bacteria). i.e. the mycobacterium has caused decrepitation up to the midpoint of the lung. Maybe just a posh term for it has spread and caused damaged?
HTH
Ls

[sagiliam]

I think the above is a bit ummm elaborate. I read your post again and you say the doc said 'there is a decrepitation up to about the midpoint' it means there is a crackle.

[BanditBitch]

Do you mean crepitation not decrepitation. Crepitation would fit in with a respiratory disorder.

Crepitation is a crackling sound heard with or without a stethoscope over broken bone, an inflamed lung, or damaged joint.

So if your relative has advanced COPD, then hearing crepitation wouldnt be out of the ordinary.

Its nothing to do with decaying etc... so dont worry about that.

You hear can hear creps with a various lung disorders

[stinkwheel]

Aye as said, crepitus is a term for a graunching noise. In medicine it is usually used to referr to various things including:
The noise of broken bone fragments sliding over one another.
The roughness felt when moving a joint with severe joint damage (eg severe arthritis).
The sensation of feeling air or gas lying just under the skin (with eg. a ruptured lung or gangrene).
A fine crackling noise on breathing in caused by fluid build-up in the smallest air pockets in the lungs.
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[yambabe]

Could have been crepitation I suppose. Thanks!

Stinkwheel's last one would fit very well with the diagnosis and other symptoms.

No sign of the docs all day today although an ultrasound of the heart has now been done, and another of the lungs is due tomorrow.
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Sod falling in love, I wanna fall in chocolate.

[hellkat]

[hellkat]

For a lung problem, I would go along decrepitation as being the sort of wheezy whistley sound you get with pneumonia or bronchitis when you hear it thru a stethoscope.
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[stinkwheel]

[queen of string]

The one you get in a lung I can cope with, the version of that sound you get over a broken bone still makes me feel sick just thinking about it
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