Where to do Serial Peak Flows?
We have a staff member who is being investigated for O.A. The worker firmly believes a specific room has caused her to develop O.A
Hygiene is awaited.
She has been asked to undertake serial peak flows and is doing these regularly in this specific room which is causing her manager some anxiety lest it provokes an acute attack because of the considerable respiratory effort when inhaling.
Should she undertake the serial peak flows outwith this area?
Will it make any difference to the quality of results?
Thanks
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The peak flows should ideally be performed approximately every 2 hours from waking to going to bed for 4 weeks. This would then include days away from work and maybe other days where the worker is not in the specific room that they think is causing the problem. There would need to be enough days in the room to be able to show an effect (or not), so just one or 2 isolated days may not be enough (unless she had a reaction and needed to leave). She would need to write down information about what she is doing each day and which room she is in to see if any particular days are better or worse (which helps narrow the problem down). It would be useful to then feed the peak flows into a program such as Oasys for analysis.
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It shouldnt matter where the peak flow measurements are actually made, provided that the majority of the workday is in the area which might be a problem. Many industrial workers do their peak flow measurements in rest areas during breaks from their usual jobs. Taking a deep inspiration shouldnt be a problem wherever it is done.
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