Portable Oxygen Concentrators

Portable oxygen concentrators have changed the way many people, who must have continuous or semi continuous oxygen therapy, are now living.

Portable Oxygen Concentrators

It used to be that mobility for COPD patients was severely restricted. This meant being house bound or overly dependent on a hospital or clinic. Portable oxygen concentrators have changed this, perhaps more than any other portable oxygen system.

With the advent of much more practical and better quality portable machines, patients mobility has increased dramatically and you can now find people on supplemental oxygen doing many things they wouldn't have imagined just a few years ago.

This has happened because of the new portable tanks, because of more advanced conserving devices (that regulate the delivery rates) and, perhaps the most important reason of all - the introduction of portable oxygen concentrators.

A portable oxygen concentrator:

• Is a machine that extracts oxygen from the surrounding air, 
• Is a small, maneuverable , light weight and independent system. 
• It concentrates oxygen and then 
• delivers it - directly to the patient (home oxygen concentrators can also be used to refill an oxygen cylinder).  
• At sea level and if air pollution is not an issue, ambient air is composed of approximately 21% oxygen, 88% nitrogen and a smaller amount of various gases. 

The oxygen concentrator extracts oxygen, concentrates it and delivers it to the patient.

Portable oxygen concentrators arrived on the scene around 2002 and since then have had a great impact in the portable oxygen delivery area.

The major difference between an oxygen concentrator and an oxygen cylinder or tank, is that the concentrator is not a storage device but a supplier of oxygen. This means that so long as the power source is uninterrupted, oxygen will continue to be delivered for as long as needed. In a tank there will always be the limitation based on the amount of oxygen that is stored, whether liquid or gas.

The new designs have both a direct plug in option (so you can plug them in cars, for example) as well as being battery operated. They are smaller, lighter and therefore easier to carry and have a direct and positive effect on people's mobility.

It seems as if each new model is smaller and has longer lasting rechargeable batteries.

An important benefit is that they have increased the possibility of travel for patients on extra oxygen, and in fact one of the more important aspects of this is that as of May, 2009, the FAA authorized the use of some portable oxygen concentrators on board airlines that cross US airspace (this means all arriving and departing flights). This change is of great consequence as air travel was a major problem. It is still, however, a good idea to check with your airline before a flight.

Although living and having to depend on supplemental oxygen is not something anyone would willingly choose to do, POC's (portable oxygen concentrators) have really changed people's lives. The much greater range of activities that can now be practiced, together with increased mobility in general, have had a very positive impact on long term oxygen therapy patients.