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.

There is an article in The Times today by one of their journalists who was ventilated with Covid-19, talking about his recovery. He is back home so they obviously do work for some. However, my understanding is that once you're at the stage of needing to be ventilated your chance of survival is pretty poor anyway.

in a nutshell
if you cant breathe adequately to oxygenate your brain, organs and blood (entire body) you will eventually die
ventilators will do this for you (hopefully) or even ecmo (its complex)
death or artificial ventilation
its a choice

People going into ventilators are very ill to start with and often have serious underlying conditions. Mechanical ventilation puts enormous stress on the body so they are at a disadvantage anyway.

Aside from all the previous points made about ventilation, this isnt the first time ive read the theory that ventilation may not be the best treatment amd hyperbaric chambers may be better so even though its Daily Mail i wouldn't be too quick to dismiss it out of hand ..

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

My thoughts, exactly. Even the specialist doctors on MN MN won't care what MNetters think about this.

In any case, I'd read something about this a while ago.
It seems that the type of pneumonia caused by coronavirus is different from most pneumonias. Doctors were reporting people with very low blood oxygen levels but who didn't seem to be that bad. It seems that the air sacks get covered in mucus (?) and simply forcing air into the lungs not only doesn't seem to help, but could damage the lungs. There was the thesis that patients did better with increased oxygen instead, just via the nose.
The other theory, or in addition, was that weakened patients didn't cope well with the sedation necessary.
Sorry, this is from memory. I'll try to find sources.

www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-overused-for-covid-19/

The medicinenet article linked above as well.

I'm sure doctors are evaluating all the data and adapting their practices accordingly.

If this is true, though, it is good news for settings with fewer ventilators, just as long as there's enough oxygen.

From Time magazine

time.com/5820556/ventilators-covid-19/

They aren’t deathtraps at all. The fact is that anybody that needs a ventilator has a very poor prognosis anyway and it’s a last resort. That’s why there’s a criteria for who is suitable to be ventilated or not. It takes months if not years to return to normality if you have been ventilated

The point some doctors seem to be making is that it's possible that some patients are being put on ventilators too early.

Deathtraps is just DM stupidity.

Lweji
The articles you have linked to are American. I haven't worked in ICU for a few years but when I did ( in the UK) there is no way we would have intubated a patient with O2 sats of 93% so I wonder how different the ventilation strategies are in different countries. The information about high pressure damaging the lungs has been known about for a very long time. I was trained in how to minimise the risk of this 25 years ago. Modern ventilators are very sophisticated but they do require the clinicians to understand how to use them to get the best out of them.

I agree the DM headline is daft.

Thanks for your post.

I wouldn't know.
There was mention of people on much lower O2 levels.

I know that DS got to levels around 80s but was only put on oxygen, when he had bronchiolitis.

On the link there was another link to a letter by Italian doctors. They recommended putting ventilators on low pressure, IIRC.