Practice English Speaking&Listening with: What is Cardiopulmonary exercise testing? / University of Kent

So cardiopulmonary examination or testing

is a non-invasive objective test

that allows asked doctors

to be able to assess quantitatively

the physiological reserve or the exercise capacity

or in layman's terms just how fit somebody is

in terms of their heart, their lungs

their subpart of their muscles

what we call the skeletal muscles and generally in terms of how the body would cope

with the stresses of the forthcoming

surgery. This is the only objective way of assessing

risk for patients. It allows us to

accurately assess a patients fitness

and predict their mortality

following major surgery. It's mainly to

weigh up the risks and the benefits of having surgery

so do the risks outweigh the benefits and

we also ensure that you don't make the decision on the day of CPETs

it's more a a tool as part of a surgical pathway.

CPETs guides the perioperative process

by allowing us to decide

where to send patients postoperatively.

Fitter patients can be sent to a normal surgical ward

patients with some

degree of impairment can be sent to a high dependency unit

and people with high degree of impairment can be sent to the intensive

care unit.

Before you have CPETs

ensure that you haven't smoked for at least two hours,

avoid caffeine for two to four hours, avoid

food for two hours and also avoid alcohol

the night before you come in. Also ensure that if you've been ill in the last two weeks that

you make us aware.

My advice to the patients is that see this as a very good positive experience

it's a very good opportunity to get a more objective

assessment of how fit you are so that when it comes to giving you informed

consent

we can sit down and give you facts and figures

in terms of what your risk might be if you are about to undertake

or have a certain operation. So I think it's is a very good thing.