Abstract
The monograph provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary view of breathlessness in acute, chronic and exacerbated stages of various illnesses. A team of experts headed by Prof.
Vondra tried to cover the issues of dyspnea from a broad point of view of many specialties. In the introductory chapters the authors deal with physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms of dyspnoea, its causes and evaluation including anamnestic analyzes and differential diagnostics algorithms.
Dyspnoea in children has a number of different and common features with adult dyspnea and is treated separately. The special chapters concern acute dyspnea, which has been expanded with significant recent news, dyspnoea in diseases of the circulatory system supplemented by passages for the treatment of cardiac dyspnoea and acute heart failure.
The other chapters deal with respiratory diseases, dyspnoea in obesity and the metabolic unit, endocrine diseases and dyspnoea from the point of view of a hematological counselor. The perception of the feeling of dyspnoea and its serious impact on the psyche of the patients is well documented by the psychiatrist.
An important chapter on dyspnoea has been added recently for diseases of the nervous system. The last part of the publication deals with the general effect of physiotherapy on dyspnoea and its specific effect on particular groups of diseases.