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Important Lung Sounds Made Easy: A Practical Guide (With Full Audio)

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Lung sounds tell you a great deal about a patient and their relative health. However, knowing the difference between rales, a crackle, and a wheeze is sometimes still a confusing proposition for many.

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<p>Lung sounds made easy From the general practice to the ICU, lung sounds tell you a great deal about a patient and their relative health. However, knowing the difference between rales, a crackle, and a wheeze is sometimes still a confusing proposition for many health professionals, especially new grads. Part of the reason for that is that some of the language is interchangeable. For instance, crackles actually are rales, and the large amount of words can leave anyone's head spinning. Knowing what to call what you hear on the other end of the stethoscope can tell you – and </p>

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  • CPDTime.
    4m of CPD

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Ausmed’s editorial team is committed to providing high-quality, well-researched and reputable education to our users, free of any commercial bias or conflict of interest. All education produced by Ausmed is developed in consultation with healthcare professionals and undergoes a regular rigorous review process to ensure the relevancy of all healthcare information and updates to changes in practice. If you have identified an issue with the education offered by Ausmed or wish to submit feedback to Ausmed's editorial team, please email ausmed@ausmed.com.au with your concerns.
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Lynda Lampert
Lynda is a registered nurse with three years experience on a busy surgical floor in a city hospital. She graduated with an Associates degree in Nursing from Mercyhurst College Northeast in 2007 and lives in Erie, Pennsylvania in the United States. In her work, she took care of patients post operatively from open heart surgery, immediately post-operatively from gastric bypass, gastric banding surgery and post abdominal surgery. She also dealt with patient populations that experienced active chest pain, congestive heart failure, end stage renal disease, uncontrolled diabetes and a variety of other chronic, mental and surgical conditions.
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What do others think?

1522 reviews by Ausmed Learners
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NS
Nacole Strobel
18 Jun 2020
Easy to understand, informative.
SD
Sonia daniels
05 Apr 2020
Easily understood Variable sounds and explanation of the types of respiratory sounds
MK
Milan kc
25 Mar 2022
Short and simple but informative.
TE
Tamara Erskine
20 Aug 2020
I found this very informative
LE
Lisa Evans
12 Jul 2021
Easy to follow and understand
Portrait of Jenny Maclean
Jenny Maclean
09 Apr 2020
I intend to listen to those sounds regularly so I can better assess my patients. It is an excellent learning tool
DF
DIANNA FORNASIER
02 Oct 2020
Great resource
Portrait of Mary Charlene Palaypayon-Reyes
Mary Palaypayon-Reyes
10 Jul 2021
Learning is best with hearing! Thanks for attaching sample lung sounds :)
GM
Grace Muhazim
14 Sep 2022
Registered Nurse
Informative
JW
Jonathan Wood
23 Apr 2020
Brief and helpful.
4.6 / 5
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