Why are people still dying yet they’re on ventilator support?? Because it’s a temporizing measure to keep the patient’s blood saturated with oxygen as the body’s immune system aided by antivirals and hydroxycloroquine battle the virus.
But it is NOT the cure. Once someone is placed on a ventilator, it’s an indication that the disease is too far advanced and chances of survival quite minimal. The problem with these vents is that you need to keep tracking progress by drawing constant ABGs and tweaking vent settings to compensate for the hypoxia in the blood. With hypoxia comes metabolic acidosis and cell death. When staff are stretched to the limit, no one has the time to spare giving this lung disease the meticulous attention it deserves.
In my opinion, ECMO is the best option for severe ARDS due to covid-19 but this resource zapping treatment is unfathomable during a pandemic.
Learn to spell out your abbreviations. Otherwise nobody knows what the hell you are saying. And by the way, why hypoxia and yet you day a ventilator saturate blood with oxygen?
The body needs oxygen to work. Where does all this oxygen come from? The lungs. Covid-19 is a disease that impacts lung by causing an intense inflammation/infection in that area where blood lacking oxygen after comes to get its O2 refill and at the same time, give up carbon dioxide which we exhale into the atmosphere.
Remember, in biochemistry we have something called the Citric acid cycle which is wholly dependent on oxygen to turn glucose into ATP. ATP is the currency that powers all cell function. Without the aerobic cycle, we are left with the inefficient anaerobic respiration mechanism and soon, there’s a build up of toxic acids which cells don’t like.
Now the kidney produces acid buffers in the form of phosphates and amino acids to protect cells from this acid insult. However when the kidneys themselves can’t get oxygen, they stop working too.
A ventilator can only work as long as some portions of the lungs have functioning units. Covid-19 is terrible because it moves very quickly and overwhelms the lungs.
Ask yourself why people are still dying even on the ventilators. A ventilator can only temporize but the disease process is still going on, infecting and killing the lungs. You need a way to totally bypass the lungs and still deliver oxygen to the organs until the virus has stopped multiplying and give it time to heal. ECMO is the only solution for this; but I’m sure hii ndio imewekewa billionaires and world leaders.
why do lawyers and doctors find it necessary to use acronyms and abbreviations? And to make it worse they use them to address outsiders. It’s so alienating…no need to further astracize us from your fields.
Because you still need to have a good portion of your lungs (alveoli) working. A ventilator simply optimizes the process of getting oxygen into the blood, but if most of the lungs are wiped out a ventilator won’t help. ECMO will, because it bypasses the lungs entirely.
They are also forgetting to install a ventilator you need piped oxygen and vacuum and therefore cannot be placed in any war.
This are major infrastructure installations with capital expenditure.
An icu admitted patient requires and intensivist to manage,. These are few in our country…
The cost of patient monitors and vents is prohibitive not to mention critical care beds.
We cannt manage
Now Your issues here are irrelevant. (no offence though). Tweaking the vent settings is a non issue. Most patient use SIMV MODE . All you need to set is tidal volume, peep,FIO2, resp rate etc. It only takes less than a minute. Again ABG is a regular test that you need to do to all ICU patients. You can easily access femoral artery or any other big artery. I think your argument is non evidence based.
Exactly. You need H cylinders of piped oxygen and air, that come through central supply through the ceiling into the patient’s room. Huge infrastructure! On top of that, you need suction, infusion pumps, intravenous line kits for administering continuous sedatives and paralytics. Most of these patients need intermittent CRRT (a form of dialysis) so you also need dialysis insertion kits and machines. ABG machines, portable xray machines or ultrasound to track progress…and MANPOWER!
Use in COVID-19 patientsEdit
Beginning in early February 2020, doctors in China have increasingly been using ECMO as an adjunct support for patients presenting with acute viral pneumonia associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19); when, even after ventilation, the blood oxygenation levels remain too low to sustain the patient.[6] The initial reports indicate that it is assisting in restoring patients’ blood oxygen saturation and reducing fatalities among the approximately 3% of severe cases where it has been utilized.[7]