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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 actually a question from a reader and the reader asks,

Hi Patrik,

At what stage is a patient in intensive care a candidate for a ventilator if they have a low respiratory rate or a high respiratory rate? What are the rates that someone needs to be put on a ventilator? And my next question is, at what stage can the ventilator be removed?

From Anita

Hi Anita,

So it’s a great question and Anita, I don’t have a simple and straightforward answer for you because it depends. And if you’ve done any research and if you’ve watched any of my videos, read any of my blogs, the first thing that I’m always saying before I will answer your question is, the biggest challenge for families in intensive care is 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.

So let’s look at your question, Anita. So if someone has a low breathing rate, that doesn’t mean they have to go on a ventilator. There are other things that could happen too. Let’s just say they have a low breathing rate because they’ve just had an overdose of morphine or fentanyl or any other sedative. And they’re just breathing with five breaths per minute or even less.

Well, the first thing you would do in a situation like that is giving an antidote such as Narcan for morphine and then see whether that would solve the problem. So no need for a ventilator there. On the higher side, if someone has a high respiratory rate, what’s the cause for that? Is it sepsis? Is it pain? Is it something else? Is it low carbon dioxide? It could be all sorts of reasons for that.

So you need to look at reversing that cause first and then look at the ventilator. So, that’s what I’m saying, families in intensive care don’t know what they don’t know. And also even if a ventilator is needed, there is a distinction there. Does someone need a ventilator with a breathing tube? Or does someone need a ventilator just with BiPAP with a mask? So intensive care is never straightforward. It takes years of training and experience to answer those questions. So, unfortunately, answers are never straightforward because it all depends on what else is going on.

Okay, the next question you had Anita was, when can a patient be removed from a ventilator? Now, again, it depends. Is the patient ventilated with a breathing tube, with the tracheostomy or with BiPAP/CPAP mask ventilation? So it all depends on that, what form of ventilation someone is using. But I have written about this extensively and I have written, and I’ve done videos about this when a patient can be weaned off or taken off a ventilator, either with a tracheostomy or with a breathing tube. I will post the link below this video so you can actually see when a patient can be taken off the ventilator.

Related articles and videos:

• YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED LIVE: HOW TO WEAN OFF VENTILATION AND TRACHEOSTOMY IN ICU?
• HOW TO WEAN A CRITICALLY ILL PATIENT IN INTENSIVE CARE OFF THE VENTILATOR AND THE BREATHING TUBE!
• TRACHEOSTOMY AND WEANING OFF THE VENTILATOR IN ICU, HOW LONG CAN IT TAKE?

So 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 the website, or simply send us an email to [email protected].

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

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