Articles: intubation.
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Around 1 million people sustain a spinal cord injury each year, which can have significant psychosocial, physical and socio-economic consequences for patients, their families and society. The aim of this review is to provide clinicians with a summary of recent studies of direct relevance to the airway management of patients with confirmed or suspected traumatic spinal cord injury to promote best clinical practice. All airway interventions are associated with some degree of movement of the cervical spine; in general, these are very small and whether these are clinically significant in terms of impingement of the spinal cord is unclear. ⋯ Direct laryngoscopy does cause a slightly greater degree of cervical spinal movement during tracheal intubation than videolaryngoscopy, but this does not appear to increase the risk of spinal cord compression. The risk of spinal cord injury during tracheal intubation appears to be minimal even in the presence of gross cervical spine instability. Depending on the clinical situation, practitioners should choose the tracheal intubation technique with which they are most proficient and that is most likely to minimise cervical spine movement.
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Review Randomized Controlled Trial
Identification and Prevention of Extubation Failure in Adults using an Automated Continuous Monitoring Alert vs Standard Care: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Postextubation monitoring helps identify patients at risk of developing respiratory failure. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of our standard respiratory therapist (RT) assessment tool versus an automated continuous monitoring alert to initiate postextubation RT-driven care on the re-intubation rate. ⋯ In subjects who received mechanical ventilation for > 24 h, there were no significant outcome or cost differences between our standard RT assessment tool or an automated monitoring alert to initiate postextubation RT-driven care. Using an automated continuous monitoring alert to initiate RT-driven care saved RT time. (ClinicalTrials.gov registration NCT04231890).
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Intensive care medicine · Oct 2022
ReviewHow to improve intubation in the intensive care unit. Update on knowledge and devices.
Tracheal intubation in the critically ill is associated with serious complications, mainly cardiovascular collapse and severe hypoxemia. In this narrative review, we present an update of interventions aiming to decrease these complications. MACOCHA is a simple score that helps to identify patients at risk of difficult intubation in the intensive care unit (ICU). ⋯ All these elements can be integrated in a bundle. An airway management algorithm should be adopted in each ICU and adapted to the needs, situation and expertise of each operator. Videolaryngoscopes should be used by experienced operators.
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Meta Analysis
Prevention of Endotracheal Tube-Related Pressure Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
Hospital-acquired pressure injuries, including those related to airway devices, are a significant source of morbidity in critically ill patients. ⋯ Airway device-related pressure injuries are common in critically ill patients, and patients with nasotracheal tubes are particularly susceptible to iatrogenic harm. Fastening devices and barrier dressings decrease the incidence of injury. Evidence regarding interventions is limited by lack of standardized assessments.
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Emergency clinicians are tasked with managing a variety of patients with acute deformities. One of the most acute situations management of the patient who presents with an airway emergency. ⋯ In some cases, challenging anatomic issues can be predicted before beginning laryngoscopy, but in many situations, prediction models fall short. It is critically important for emergency clinicians to anticipate anatomic issues in all airways and to have premeditated strategies for managing them.