EMT Airway Management Practice Test

The pattern described is Cheyne-Stokes respiration. It features a regular cyclical sequence: breathing gradually increases in rate and depth (a crescendo), then gradually decreases (a decrescendo) until it stops briefly (period of apnea), and the cycle then repeats. This waxing and waning with a pause happens because the brain’s control of breathing is temporarily overshooting and then undershooting the drive to breathe.

This pattern is often seen in patients with conditions such as congestive heart failure, stroke or other brain injuries, or increased intracranial pressure, and can also appear in some older patients or during sleep. It helps distinguish a dysregulated respiratory rhythm from other abnormal patterns.

Why the other patterns don’t fit: agonal respirations are irregular, gasping, and not part of a smooth, repeating crescendo–decrescendo cycle; ataxic (Biot) respirations are completely irregular in rate and depth with irregular pauses; eupneic means normal, regular breathing.