What is agonal breathing and what does it indicate?

Agonal breathing is a sign that a person is near death. It’s also a sign that the brain is still alive. People who have agonal breathing and are given cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) are more likely to survive cardiac arrest than people without agonal breathing.

Is agonal breathing respiratory distress?

Medical texts and healthcare providers sometimes refer to a type of breathing called agonal respirations or agonal breathing. You may have heard this term and wondered what it means. It is a specific type of respiratory pattern and might be mistaken for adequate breathing in an emergency.

What can cause agonal breathing?

Agonal breathing has two primary causes: cardiac arrest and cerebral ischemia, which is a type of stroke caused by a reduction of oxygen-rich blood reaching the brain. Cardiac arrest creates problems with the heart’s electrical system. This problem causes a person’s heart to beat irregularly, called arrhythmia.

What are irregular breathing patterns?

They include apnea, eupnea, orthopnea, dyspnea hyperpnea, hyperventilation, hypoventilation, tachypnea, Kussmaul respiration, Cheyne-Stokes respiration, sighing respiration, Biot respiration, apneustic breathing, central neurogenic hyperventilation, and central neurogenic hypoventilation.

What do agonal respirations look like?

Agonal breathing is instead an abnormal and often brief and inadequate pattern of breathing. Agonal breathing may sound like gasping, but it can also sound like snorting and labored breathing. It may even seem as though the person is moaning. The abnormal breathing may last only a few breaths or could go on for hours.

Are you conscious agonal breathing?

Agonal breathing is the medical term for a certain type of gasping for air, usually during a serious medical emergency like a stroke or heart attack. This gasping may appear conscious. But it is commonly a reflex managed by the brain stem.

Can you have agonal respirations without a pulse?

The rate of neurologically favorable one-year survival in the agonal respiration with pulse, agonal respiration without pulse, no respiration with pulse, no respiration without pulse groups was 15.4% (4/26), 21.7% (46/212), 14.7% (5/34), and 2.3% (143/6328), respectively.

What do blowing respirations mean?

Sometimes when this happens, it’s called hyperventilation, or overbreathing. That’s when you inhale much deeper and take much faster breaths than normal. This deep, quick breathing changes the gas exchange in your lungs. Normally, you breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.

How long do agonal respirations last?

Agonal breathing is an extremely serious medical sign requiring immediate medical attention, as the condition generally progresses to complete apnea and heralds death. The duration of agonal respiration can be as brief as two breaths or last up to several hours.

How long can you live with agonal breathing?

A person who experiences agonal respiration may stay alive for five minutes. There is a possibility to revive the person after that. But according to MedlinePlus.gov, within five minutes of oxygen depletion, brain cells begin to die. Within 10 minutes, significant organ and brain damage may occur.