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

So, I had an email from a reader who says, “I’m very unsure how to take care of my daughter in an induced coma in intensive care”, and I can only imagine. Well, I know how frustrating it is for families to visit their loved ones in intensive care and feel absolutely powerless. They don’t really understand what’s happening, and they don’t know what to do as the next step. Let me explain what you should be doing as the next step.

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. Again, I think that this is exactly what our reader is dealing with here.

But if you ask the intensive care team, how you should be looking after your daughter in an induced coma in intensive care, they will probably tell you, “Well, there’s nothing you need to do. You just need to let us do the work and maybe sit there, hold her hand and talk to her”, and that’s what I would say to you too. Watch what she’s doing, talk to her, hold her hand, be with her. She can most likely feel your presence even though she’s in an induced coma.

Now, a lot of it also depends obviously on why she’s in an induced coma. So, she must be on a ventilator with a breathing tube, that’s a given. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be in an induced coma most likely.

So, you should be starting to ask all the important questions. Why is she in an induced coma? Why is she on sedation and most likely also opiates when someone is in an induced coma and is on sedatives, like propofol, midazolam or Versed, or potentially Precedex, they’re often also on morphine or fentanyl so that the breathing tube and the ventilation can be tolerated.

But there could be other things that are very painful for your daughter. She might have had an accident, God forbid, and she might have fractures that might be very painful, or she might have come out of surgery. I don’t know, you haven’t given all the details, but one way or another you need to think about what is next here.

When she’s coming out of the induced coma and how can you speed up the process of getting out of the induced coma besides sitting next to her, holding her hand, and talking to her, you should be getting informed. You want to be in a position where you can make informed decisions where you can have peace of mind, control, power, and influence otherwise, what’s the point?

You want to be in control, and you also want to take responsibility for what’s happening, and you might say, “Hey, Patrik, how can I take responsibility?” Well, you need to take responsibility by being informed.

You don’t want the intensive care team to come to you tomorrow and say, “Hey, things are not going as planned. We might have to change course here. We don’t think it’s in the best interest for your daughter to survive.” You never know. If you watch any of my other videos, you will see that it’s what many families are dealing with.

So, it is critically important for you to understand what’s happening. I would highly recommend you get access to the medical records. I would highly recommend that you get an advocate on your side to make sure that the intensive care team is doing all the right things to make sure you can have a second opinion.

But either way, for now, while your daughter is in an induced coma, hold her hand, and talk to her. Many patients after an induced coma do remember that family members were there, they were holding their hand, and they were consoling them. Some patients do remember that others don’t. But you should be doing that.

The other thing you could be looking at is a RASS score. It’s R-A-S-S (Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale) score. Type it into Google and find out what the RASS score is. It’s sort of a sedation scale and it tells you how deeply your daughter is sedated because she shouldn’t be too deeply sedated unless she has a traumatic brain injury with seizures, for example, then she really needs to be deeply sedated.

But other than that, she should be lightly sedated, and she should be rousable, but again, depends on what condition or why your daughter is in ICU and what condition she is in there with. I really hope that helps and explains what you should be doing here as the next step.

Now, we also have created a membership for families of critically ill patients in intensive care at intensivecarehotline.com. There, you have access to me and my team, 24 hours a day, in the membership area and via email and we answer all questions, intensive care related.

In the membership, you also get e-books and videos specifically written and recorded for families in intensive care that address all your questions for families in intensive care, but those e-books and videos are only accessible to members.

You can get access to the membership by going to intensivecarehotline.com and clicking on the membership link or by going to intensivecaresupport.org directly, that’s intensivecaresupport.org. Again, in the membership, you have access to me and my team, 24 hours a day, and we answer all questions intensive care related, either via email or in the membership.

I also offer one-on-one consulting advocacy over the phone, Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp, whichever medium works best for you. I talk to you and your families directly. I talk to you and the doctors and the nurses directly and you will see that when I speak to doctors and nurses that the dynamics will change in your favor very, very quickly.

We’ve just had a client this week where the ICU team was refusing therapy that I believe is necessary and appropriate for a patient, and now the patient gets the therapy.

You’d be constantly surprised by what ICU teams are saying, what they’re doing, what they’re not doing. You might think, “What’s going on there?”, and that’s when you need that third party, that second opinion, and that’s where we are helping.

I have worked in intensive care nursing for over 20 years in three different countries where I also worked as a nurse manager for over five years, and I have been consulting and advocating for families in intensive care since 2013 here at intensivecarehotline.com and getting real results.

We have saved lives for our patients in intensive care. I can say that without the shadow of a doubt and without any hint of exaggeration, just have a look at our testimonial section or at our podcast section where we have also interviewed clients.

We also offer medical record reviews in real-time so that you can get a second opinion in real-time. All with the goal of you making informed decisions, having peace of mind, control, power, and influence.

I also represent you in family meetings with the intensive care team so that you have an advocate there. I also assess with you whether you should even go into a family meeting in the first place, that’s all part of our strategies out of our proven strategies I should say.

Furthermore, we also offer medical record reviews after intensive care if you have unanswered questions, if you need closure, or if you are simply suspecting medical negligence.

All of that you get at intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply send us an email to [email protected].

If you like my video, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care click the like button, click the notification bell, share the video with your friends and families and comment below what you want to see next or what questions and insights you have.

I also do a weekly YouTube live where you can ask your questions on the YouTube live.

Thanks for watching.

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

Take care for now.