Dyspnoea

• Dyspnoea

  A common symptom with long term conditions or terminal illness
• Dyspnoea

  Urge and hunger for more air
• Dyspnoea in diseases which impair respiratory muscles

  • Work/effort increases
  • Tightness is associated with bronchoconstriction
  • Air hunger/unsatisfied inspiration creating a drive to breath which cannot be matched and satisfied
• Measures of Dyspnoea


  • Sensory-perceptual experience
  • Affective distress
  • Impact or burden
• Sensory-perceptual experience

  Borg scale and VAS
• Affective distress

  Severity rating scale and Emotional response scale (anxiety)
• Impact or burden

  MRC scale, functional ability and life/health status
• MRC scale


  • 0 No breathlessness except with strenuous exercise
  • 1 Shortness of breath when hurrying on the level or walking up a slight hill
  • 2 Walks slower than people of the same age on the level because of breathlessness or has to stop for breath when walking at own pace on the level
  • 3 Stops for breath after walking about 100 metres or after a few minutes on the level
  • 4 Too breathless to leave the house or breathless when dressing or undressing
• Borg CR10 scale

  • Only focus' on breathlessness on it's own as a symptom
  • Used with exercise tests to measure breathlessness in 'real time'
  • 0 = no breathlessness and 10 = maximum breathlessness