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After 8 Days from ICU to LTAC Still no Mobilization & My Loved One Can’t Be Weaned Off the Ventilator! Quick Tip for Families in ICU!

Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care. So today’s tip is about, again, for our audience in the U.S., LTACs (long-term acute care) in the U.S. I’ll give you a real case study why we are saying do not go from ICU to LTAC. So, case in point.

So, one of our clients has got their loved one in LTAC and the client’s family member has been there for about eight days now. And whilst the client’s family member is making some slow progress, it’s probably not fast enough. Now the LTAC is now conveniently telling our client that they have 32 days and if their loved one is not weaned off the ventilator, she will go to a subacute facility because the time is up then. That is ridiculous, especially since they have not started mobilizing our client’s family member.

In over 20 years of ICU, I have not seen patients being successfully weaned off a ventilator without them getting mobilized. The best comparison that I can give you is you can’t run a marathon without training. Now, if someone is ventilated for weeks in an induced coma, lying in their bed for weeks, ventilators doing all the breathing, their breathing muscles are deconditioned and then they need to almost be learning to breathe again from scratch. And that’s not happening without being mobilized. You’ve got to sit up, got to sit on the edge of the bed, even if it’s only two minutes today, because you can’t do more. You do five minutes tomorrow, then you get sitting up in a chair. Even if you can only manage 20 minutes, the next day may be half an hour. That’s how it works. It’s bloody hard work.

I’ve got news, it’s hard slogging, but that’s how it works. And it looks to me like most LTACs are either complacent or they simply don’t have the expertise and the knowledge that this is how you can wean someone off a ventilator, especially when the clock is ticking off 32 days. You need to start from day one, and it’s not happening. We see that across the board. It’s not happening. LTACs do not have the expertise or the skills or maybe the know-how, probably a combination of all of that to wean someone off a ventilator and then they take the easy way out and start telling families, well, if it’s not happening, we’ll send you to a subacute facility where there’s even fewer skills available, making patients long-term ventilator dependent. And it’s just an absolute disgrace, let’s call it, for what it is.

So that’s my quick tip for today. Do not go to LTAC. I’ve made many other videos around this. But here’s another one, unfortunately.

So that’s my quick tip for today.

If you have a loved one in intensive care, go to intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of the website or simply send us an email to [email protected].

Also have a look at our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org. There you have access to me and my team 24-hours a day in a membership area and via email, and we answer all questions, intensive care and Intensive Care at Home related.

Now if you need a medical record review for your loved one in intensive care or in LTAC or after Intensive Care because you’re suspecting medical negligence, you should contact us as well. The best way forward is really to review medical record in real time when your loved one is in intensive care, so we can interpret all the clinical data for you and almost give you like a second opinion in real time.

If you like the video, give it a thumbs up. Subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care and Intensive Care at Home. Click the notification bell, share the video with your friends and families, and comment below what questions and insights do you have or do you agree with what I’m saying or do you disagree? All opinions are welcome.

Thanks for watching.

This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com and I’ll talk to you in a few days.