Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.

Yesterday,  I was talking to a client Sarah and Sarah says that her dad has been in ICU for now 18 days after he fell off a roof and he sustained a number of injuries including a brain injury.

So her dad isn’t conscious yet. And he’s now had a tracheostomy and the ICU is trying to send him out to LTAC as quickly as possible to get him weaned off the ventilator. So I asked her to send me a picture of the ventilator and it looks like her dad is, number one, very close of coming off the ventilator. So probably no need to send her dad to the LTAC and rather focus on neurological rehabilitation. That would be way more important to focus on neuro rehabilitation after the brain injury because her dad is not awake yet and he hasn’t been mobilized.

So, what’s the lesson here? The lesson is,  do not let ICU push you to send your loved one to LTAC because LTAC implies long-term acute care. Why would Sarah suddenly need long-term acute care if he is close to coming off the ventilator and it can be achieved in the next few days.

So it’s so critically important that you are asking the right questions and that you’re talking to a professional who can give you a second opinion because your biggest challenge is that you don’t know what you don’t know. Intensive care is such a highly specialized area that you need to talk to a professional that’s not part of the Intensive Care Team because the Intensive Care Team has a different agenda to what’s best for your loved one.

So go and talk to us at intensivecarehotiline.com and I’ll talk to in a few days.