Inside Respiratory Therapy
Discover how respiratory therapists evaluate struggling patients, manage vital oxygen systems, and run life-saving ventilators. Learn the hands-on clinical moves that keep airways clear and lungs breathing.
Like Duolingo, but for Inside Respiratory Therapy. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through The Frontline Respiratory Toolkit and Stepping Up to Mechanical Support. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Inside Respiratory Therapy
- Patients lean forward on their knees or a table (tripod position) to mechanically assist their breathing muscles
- Visible sinking around the ribs, neck, or sternum (retractions) shows excessive effort to draw in air
- Physical posturing and nostril flaring appear well before oxygen saturation drops on a bedside screen
- Pulse oximeters only measure the percentage of oxygen in circulating blood, not the mechanical effort required to get it there
- A normal reading can mask a patient who is rapidly tiring their respiratory muscles and heading toward sudden respiratory arrest
- Therapists evaluate the patient's breathing labor first and use the monitor number as secondary confirmation
- Oxygen is a dosed medication requiring specific therapeutic targets rather than an automatic maximum flow
- Giving excessive oxygen to patients with chronic lung disease can suppress their natural breathing stimulus
- Respiratory therapists titrate oxygen flow to deliver just enough support without washing out lung balances
- A nasal cannula is a low-flow device that only supplies a portion of each breath, forcing the patient to draw in surrounding room air
- Deeper or faster breaths pull in a higher volume of room air (21% oxygen), diluting the pure oxygen coming through the prongs
- Delivered oxygen percentage fluctuates constantly based on the patient's changing breathing pattern
- Standard cannulas cannot meet the sheer flow demand of a rapidly deteriorating patient
- Non-rebreather masks use an attached reservoir bag to capture pure oxygen so the patient inhales minimal room air
- High-flow systems match or exceed the patient's peak inspiratory flow to guarantee exact concentrations
- Inhaled bronchodilators target airway smooth muscle directly for rapid relief within minutes
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Inside Respiratory Therapy the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What does visible sinking around a patient's ribs or neck—known as retractions—tell you?
Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.
Where Inside Respiratory Therapy takes you
- 1
The Frontline Respiratory Toolkit
- Spotting Respiratory Distress and Giving Oxygen
- Delivering Aerosols and Clearing Airways
- 2
Stepping Up to Mechanical Support
- Non-Invasive Ventilation: CPAP and BiPAP
- Fundamentals of the Mechanical Ventilator
2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Inside Respiratory Therapy is taught in the The Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Inside Respiratory Therapy today.
Download Tomo, search Inside Respiratory Therapy, and play your first lesson in under a minute.