FiO₂ (Nursing)

00:01 Now, I love this picture.

00:02 Look at that. It's a little red blood cell, he's gonna get an oxygen mask on.

00:07 I think it's hilarious, but I do have a weird sense of humor.

00:10 But, look, he's hanging on to that oxygen tank for dear life.

00:14 Or remember, red blood cells job is to carry oxygen around to the rest of the cells, that's what they do.

00:21 They're not super smart but they are really efficient, so when we're talking about FiO2, you know that second part of the PaO2/FiO2 ratio, this represents the fraction of inspired oxygen.

00:34 It's the fraction concentration of the oxygen the patient is inspiring or breathing in.

00:41 Now room air, take a deep breath, okay take another one, that's always a good thing particularly when you're studying but room air is 21% and you may see that written as 0.21 or 21% but that's roughly the fraction of inspired oxygen in room air, the average setting.

01:08 Now, FiO2 can range from 21% which is room air to 1.0 or 100%, so keep that in mind.

01:18 If I'm not -- if I don't have any extra oxygen on, like my little friend in the picture, then I'm likely breathing 21%, but if I keep adding oxygen mask, cannulas, intubation, I can increase the FiO2 to 100%.

01:33 Now, if I'm just standing here breathing an FiO2 of 21%, that means I'm doing okay.

01:40 My respiratory rate right now as you can see on video is normal.

01:43 I don't seem like I'm really working to breathe, so everything is relatively normal.

01:50 I'm right at 21%, I appear to be okay.

01:52 We could draw some lab work or do a pulse ox to validate that, but pretty much, you know, I'm doing alright.

02:00 Room air is more than just that 21% oxygen and I wanted to make sure you knew that.

02:06 You think about, yeah, I know room air is 21%, but wait a minute, what's the rest of it? Well, big old chunk of it is nitrogen, we also got carbon dioxide, argon, and some other stuff.

02:19 Depending on where you live, there might be some really weird other stuff, but for the most part, I wanted you to have a visual picture, it says room air, that's why we have the window open, is 21% oxygen.