colfax_m
Diamond Member
- Nov 18, 2019
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If you look at this article, it’s from April 2020.No, not according to me Lush.
“Mechanical ventilators work by pushing air into the lungs of critically ill patients who can no longer breathe well on their own. These patients must be sedated and have a tube stuck into their throat.
Recognizing that complications from ventilator use can occur, some intensive care units (ICUs) have started to delay putting a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator until the last possible moment, when it is truly a life-or-death decision, said Dr. Udit Chaddha, an interventional pulmonologist with Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
"There had been a tendency earlier on in the crisis for people to put patients on ventilators early, because patients were deteriorating very quickly," Chaddha said. "That is something that most of us have stepped away from doing.
"We let these patients tolerate a little more hypoxia[oxygen deficiency]. We give them more oxygen. We don't intubate them until they are truly in respiratory distress," Chaddha said. "If you do this correctly, if you put somebody on the ventilator when they need to be put on the ventilator and not prematurely, then the ventilator is the only option."
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Overview
COVID-19 is a new type of coronavirus that causes mild to severe cases. Here’s a quick guide on how to spot symptoms, risk factors, prevent spread of the disease, and find out what to do if you think you have it.www.webmd.com
Very early in the pandemic, before we knew what we were doing, some places did use ventilators earlier. Again, everything was so new and mistakes were made. This phase was really only in the early weeks in New York. It became quite apparent that later intubation was better.
Placing patients prematurely on ventilators would therefore only have a modest affect on overall mortality given how limited the practice was.