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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from Intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in Intensive Care.
Yesterday, Denise called me, and she has her three-months-old son in Intensive Care and he’s been ventilated now for a couple of weeks. Intensive care team wants to proceed to a tracheostomy and Denise is asking if that’s the right decision.
Denise shared that her son had two failed extubations already and then I asked her what or whether her son was on any sedatives or sedation and she said that her son was still on Versed which is Midazolam, on Precedex and on Fentanyl.
Now, here’s the deal, for anybody who has a loved-one on the ventilator and the ICU team wants to proceed to a tracheostomy and they’re still sedated. Now, the first thing that needs to happen is, patients need to be off sedation completely to see whether they can breathe adequately, whilst they are off sedation. Basically, anybody needs to make an assessment whether they can wake up, breathe for themselves and then hopefully, avoid the tracheostomy as long as that’s not being done, the assessment is not complete.
So, Denise your son needs to be off sedation completely for a few days. So that, an assessment can be made whether he can breathe by himself or not, and then hopefully can be extubated and have the tracheostomy removed. That’s my tip for today. Check out our case studies at Intensivecarehotline.com and I’ll talk to you in a few days.