Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: Is My Mother in ICU "Unweanable"?

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

Today’s tip is about, “Is there something such as unweanable from a ventilator in intensive care?” Now, this is a question we’re getting more and more frequently because ICU teams are telling families in intensive care that their loved ones in intensive care are unweanable. Some LTACs in the U.S. also tell families in ICU or in LTAC that their loved ones are “unweanable”.

Now because this has been such a big question we’ve been getting lately, I did actually a YouTube live stream last week about this topic, about a client’s question, “My mom is in intensive care and the ICU team told me she’s unweanable!” And I made a live stream about that so that people could ask questions on the live stream. And you can check it out by clicking on the link below this video, where I link to the live stream from last week.

Now, this also became a very popular video very quickly. It had over a hundred views within a few days of me publishing it and we had quite a number of people on the live stream. And just for the records, I do YouTube live streams once a week, usually on a Saturday night at 8:30 PM Eastern Standard Time in the U.S., which is 10:30 AM Sydney, Melbourne Time in Australia on a Sunday.

Coming back to our topic, is there something such as unweanable? No, there isn’t. There is the exception to the rule. The exception to the rule is for patients that had a C1 (cervical 1) or C2 (cervical 2) spinal injury, or motor neurone disease, ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), and a few other rare neurological conditions, but they are the exception to the rule.

Every other condition in intensive care with the right skill set, and with the right determination, and with the right mindset, many patients in intensive care can be weaned off the ventilator either with the breathing tube or with the tracheostomy. If they can’t be weaned off the breathing tube or the endotracheal tube, they might need a tracheostomy. And then the next step is to wean them off the tracheostomy.

If God forbid on the rare exception where people can’t be weaned off the ventilator with a tracheostomy, or it takes long periods of time, we’re talking months, weeks, or years even, then you should look at services such as Intensive Care at Home. Go and check out intensivecareathome.com.

So go and watch the live stream.

Go and check out intensivecareathome.com.

If you have a loved one in intensive care, go to intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send us an email to [email protected].

Also have a look at our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org.

And if you need a medical record review for your loved one while they’re in intensive care or after intensive care, you can contact us as well.

Share this video with your friends and family, give it a thumbs up, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care, and click the notification bell.

Thanks for watching.

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