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

Today’s tip is about three signs that you can watch out for if the intensive care team is planning to send your loved one to LTAC.

Before I get into the meat of this video, like the video, comment below what questions and insights that you have from this video and subscribe to my YouTube channel and click the notification bell. Let’s get right into it.

So, when ICUs prepare for LTAC for your loved one to go to LTAC, they often don’t share it with you. They just line things up without you knowing. And as you heard me say before, the biggest challenge for families in intensive care, is simply that they don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know what to look for. They don’t know what questions to ask. They don’t know their rights and they don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care.

And that’s why it’s so cunning from intensive care teams to not really tell you what you need to know in order to prepare and making sure you get best care and best treatment for your loved ones.

So, number one, the first sign is that they’re telling you that your loved one needs a tracheostomy without actually telling you what the end goal is. And the end goal for ICU is often not to wean them in ICU, but to wean them in LTAC and patients can’t be weaned in LTAC. They’re a better version of a nursing home, and I’ve made numerous videos and blogs about this specific topic.

Number two, they’re trying to force you to have a PEG tube for your loved one, a feeding tube in the stomach, and that requires an operation. Now, again, that’s another sign that they’re planning for LTAC. A PEG tube is only necessary if someone can’t be weaned off the ventilator at all. And at this stage, the ICU team would know about the future of your loved one. But they want the PEG tube to send your loved one to LTAC because LTAC can only look after a PEG tube, but not after a nasogastric tube. A nasogastric tube is fully sufficient for weaning someone off the ventilator. You don’t need a PEG tube.

Number three, they are also wanting to do a PICC line. PICC line stands for Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter and that is the replacement often for a central line. And the PICC line is more long-term. It can stay in for three months, sometimes, even for longer. And again, that’s another sign that they’re preparing for LTAC without telling you. And then after they’ve done all of that, they will tell you, “Oh, we got to send your loved one to LTAC!” And you have no idea what’s going to happen, but we can help you with all of that. We are professional consultants and advocate for families in intensive care. And also for our Australian viewers, there are no LTACs in Australia, but therefore patients stay in ICU for longer. And if you have a loved one in ICU, you should check out intensivecareathome.com. That is intensivecareathome.com because we take long-term ventilated patients home from intensive care directly. And for our American viewers. We’re working also to do this in the United States.

So that’s my quick tip for today.

Go and check out intensivecarehotline.com if you have a loved one in intensive care. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of the website, or send me an email to [email protected].

Like this video, comment below what you want to see next, or what questions and insights you have, subscribe to my YouTube channel for families in intensive care and hit the notification bell. And also check out our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org. That’s membership for families in intensive care.

Take care for now.