People with emphysema experience irreversible destruction of their alveoli. What effect would this have on the delivery of oxygen to the blood and how could you overcome this problem?

The alveoli maximise oxygen diffusion into the blood, so the loss of alveoli reduces the amount of diffusion that can occur. The amount of diffusion that occurs in the alveoli depends on partial pressure gradients-the bigger the difference in the oxygen pressure between the alveoli and the blood the greater the amount of diffusion that will occur. If people have fewer alveoli because of emphysema we could compensate by increasing the amount of oxygen diffusing into the blood from each of the remaining alveoli. To do that we need to increase the partial pressure of oxygen in the alveoli and we do that by breathing gas mixture that contains more oxygen than room air. People with emphysema often use nasal prongs to deliver oxygen from a portable oxygen tank, and this enables them to maintain some degree of mobility.