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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 hypoxic brain injury in intensive care and future quality of life, because this is something we are dealing with almost on a day by day basis. So what do I mean by that?

A lot of patients go into intensive care after cardiac arrest for example, after traumatic brain injury, after a stroke, after hemorrhagic or an ischemic stroke, and they end up unfortunately with a hypoxic brain injury. And then intensive care units are very quick to point out that if there’s a hypoxic brain injury, that it’s “in the best interest of a patient” to have life support withdrawn and let them pass away because in their eyes, the patient does not have any perceived future quality of life.

What is quality of life? What is it? It’s a very subjective term and a very subjective measure for the individual. And quality of life is in the eye of the beholder and should not be subject to intensive care teams making that call. It is up to you and your family, it is up to your loved one, maybe they have an advanced care plan. If they don’t have a documented advanced care plan, maybe they have discussed this with you even before ICU admission for whatever reason and they say, “Look, I want everything to be done. I want to live no matter the cost”.

Then you need to stand up for that because most patients in intensive care survive, over 90% of patients in intensive care survive their intensive care’s day, which is something the ICU team is not telling you. They’re conveniently withholding that information and they just focus on the negative. And by them focus on the negative, you might miss some of the facts, which is one of the facts is, over 90% of intensive care patients actually survive. And that is a number you should be keeping in mind that the odds are actually in your loved ones’ favor. And then you can worry about quality of life down the line once they’re out of intensive care, maybe they have a tracheostomy, maybe they don’t need a tracheostomy, but they can then focus on rehabilitation and go from there.

There’s plenty of time to talk about end of life in intensive care. What’s the hurry to talk about end of life, because once someone has passed away, they’re gone for good, as far as we are aware. So you got to think things through very carefully. And if intensive care teams talk about end of life and talk about withdrawing a life support after just a few hours or just a few days that is not a long time. A long time in intensive care is may be three or four months, not three days, not even three weeks. So you got to question the motives and you got to seek definitely professional help and advice if you are in a situation like that and if you’re feeling lost.

So that’s my quick tip for today.

And also last but not least, especially now with Intensive Care at Home Services , there’s always an option for your loved one to go home. If they’re taking more time to wake up in intensive care, they need a tracheostomy, for example, go and check out intensivecareathome.com. Here’s another option for you besides the intensive care team talking about end of life and palliative care. Go and check out intensivecareathome.com for more information.

Now, if you have a loved one in intensive care, go to intensivecarehotline.com and call us on one of the numbers on the top of the website, or send us an email to [email protected] with your questions.

Like this video, comment below what you want to see next, or what insights you have from this video, click the notification bell, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for updates for families in intensive care.

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