Are ventilators deathtraps?

[AnonymousWoman]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8230775/Is-proof-live-saving-ventilators-actually-deathtraps.html

The article says it all really. It may be okay to ventilate for other illnesses such as pnuemonia but maybe not for Covid- 19.

I can't take anything from the Daily Fail seriously. If you are admitted to ICU and put on a ventilator then your chances aren't good to start with. That headline is fear mongering with no research to back it up.

I thought generally doctors try to put patients on CPAP first anyway, and most ventilators have an option of both. Probably best to leave solution-assessment to the medical community on this than try to second guess which treatment is best. It was always going to be the case that treatment will improve as time goes on and more is learned about the virus.

When I can get a daily dose of right wing claptrap from The Lancet, I'll take medical news from the Daily Mail seriously.

Also Betteridges Law of Headlines applies ....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

Provide a decent scientific study not the Daily Heil and I'll think about considering your question

The death rates for those on ventilators in America and rationale for not treating the virus as if it is like pnuemonia make the argument put forward by these doctors very compelling.

It’s actually quite a good article, I’ve just read the whole thing. Obviously someone else wrote the headline. Ive seen the thinking elsewhere and you can find similar in better publications! But legit medical thinking that has made it to the daily fail is Called medical thinking that is already known in the medical community, they are looking at this. Obviously understanding of how to treat this disease is evolving.

I’d have thought that doctors and medical scientists were better placed to investigate the thesis than mumsnetters

This is like saying that patients who walk away from car crashes are more likely to survive than those that are taken away in an ambulance . Of course the most critically ill patients who are ventilated are the least likely to survive.

All UK hospitals are giving patients CPAP/Optiflow/other forms of non-invasive ventilation if appropriate, mechanical ventilation is a last resort if someone looks like they might die without it.

you can always not believe what you read in the daily wail.

If you want to skip the Daily Fail article and go straight to the source, this is the original video by the New York doctor suggesting ventilation makes outcomes worse

Isn't that Kevin from Motherland? - That's all I have to add to the debate.

amazing that its only one doctors opinion - maybe he prefers to let people die because ventilators are the last ditch of keeping really sick people alive without them they would die obviously the investment into PAP to prevent their condition deteriorating to this later stage

All I know is that I remember an Italian doctor saying that in his hospital, ALL those on ventilators did not survive.
Obviously we know that some on ventilators DO survive (presumably in other hospitals, and in the UK) as we have heard their stories.
It seems to depend on how long they are on a ventilator for.
I actually thought the article very thought provoking and interesting. So little is known about the virus, I just hope the medical profession around the world are collaborating with each other.
(I am not a medical person)

You don’t just ventilate for the bilateral viral pneumonia. They develop ARDS and can physically from air hunger.

The article is written really oddly, talks about how ventilators help your muscles but people with COVID have normal muscles. Makes no effing sense.

Physically tire **

From what I have read of late, to be ventilated is quite an unpleasant experience,although a person has to be sedated throughout. They must be deemed as beneficial to some people,or they would not use them.

For some very sick people the apparatus just won't provide a miracle recovery sadly.

As an add on, I am an oldie, and remember the 1950 era, when an Iron Lung was used widely for polio,and they were very scary looking machines,doing what modern ventilators do now. I knew a couple of my school friends who had to go in an Iron Lung, I didn't see them, but photo's of the contraption were quite horrible.

ARDS has a relatively high mortality rate anyway, 30-50%.

Fuck me, so much bollocks in one article. The suggestion is coming from a "junior casualty doctor". I'd rather listen to an intensivist, respiratory specialist or anaethetist. They don't even explain proning correctly, I'd like to see anyone try to get a self ventilating patient who is gasping for breath to lie on their stomach? This is shockingly irresponsible journalism.

PuzzledObserver Quite a few Mumsnetters are doctors and medical scientists.

Interesting article thanks

I have been ventilated after a traumatic birth. I was put into an artificial coma to recover. When conscious, I found being ventilated very uncomfortable and frustrating (obvs you can't speak) but after being extubated I quickly developed pneumonia. This was 15 years ago so things might have changed but I was told that this is very common. I was 30 so recovered quickly (with physio to help me cough properly) but I can imagine it is quite a traumatic experience if you are frail or weak. I don't know why people can't be given oxygen earlier although my local hospital has said it is running low so perhaps that's the answer.

This was featured on Newsnight last night. I understood doctors were looking to change the protocol, or at least, recommending it. It's on catch up

This link was on the daily numbers thread -
www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=230110#

Same story with less eye catching headline

source: MedicineNet Health News

Some doctors are questioning the way ventilators are being used for people with serious cases of COVID-19. Why? More data shows a high death rate for patients treated under current ventilator practices.

At the same time, these doctors are saying their patients behave more like they have high altitude sickness than a viral infection.

I thought it was a new disease and there is evolving and ongoing understanding about how best to treat.

That article strikes me as complete bollocks which ignore that things like proning and oxygen support other than by ventilator are standard practice in British ICUs, and that only those who do not benefit from those interventions are then ventilated (death rate for those needing ventilation about 50/50, but one third of those admitted to ICU recover without ventilation)

I thought it was a new disease and there is evolving and ongoing understanding about how best to treat

I think you’re right. But getting enough oxygen into a person whilst you work out other aspects of treatment is pretty dammed important. Because if you don’t, they die.

So for the most serious cases, the choice is 50/50 (with ventilation) or certain death (without)

Ventilation when there are still other, less invasive, options is not the British treatment pathway