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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, “Not knowing what to do, not knowing what questions to ask, and how do I convince the doctors and nurses in intensive care that my mom would be better off being extubated?” Now, these are questions we get all the time and it’s time to elaborate a bit more on that.

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.

Now, the devil is in the detail when it comes to care and treatment in intensive care. This is a very broad and general question, and we’re getting those broad and general questions all the time. And whilst they are absolutely right questions to ask, it misses the details and the nuances that need to go into a question like this.

First question is, why is your mom in intensive care? Next question is, what ventilator settings is she on? Why did she get on the ventilator and intubated in the first place? How far away is she from being extubated? What stops the ICU team from extubating her? What do chest X-rays show? What medications is she on? What do blood results show? What do arterial blood gases show? Is your mom awake? Is she agitated? It’s really a case of piecing together the whole puzzle before you can make a sort of an educated recommendation.

What is next? I have published a long blog post couple of years ago, “What questions to ask in intensive care?” It’s free, you can access it. I’ll put a link below this video, “What questions to ask?” But again, it comes down to understanding intensive care inside out. I’ve worked in intensive care for over 20 years in three different countries. And I believe there’s no question you can’t ask me in intensive care that I can’t answer. Because I’ve worked in the environment for so long and I’m talking to families and teams in intensive care every day of the week.

So, it really comes down to all the details to the right questions to ask.  Again, it comes down to, especially when someone is on a ventilator settings, neurological condition, how awake is your mom? Can she obey commands? Was there a neurological event such as stroke, seizures? Does she have a pneumonia? Is the pneumonia not cleared? Those are all the questions that need to be asked. What medications is she on? What do chest X-rays show? Arterial blood gases are important. Other blood results are important. Diagnostics, did she have a CT (Computed Tomography) scan? Chest X-ray? And so forth. So, it really comes down to asking all the right questions and breaking it down.

That is my quick tip for today.

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 email us to [email protected].

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

If you need a medical record review, you can contact us as well. If you have a loved one in intensive care and you need medical records reviewed, or you need a review for yourself while you’re in intensive care or after intensive care, we can help you with that as well.

Now, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care and Intensive Care at Home, share this video with your friends and families, give it a like, a thumbs up, click the notification bell, and comment below what you want to see next, or what questions and insights you have from this video.

Thanks for watching.

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