The lack of a cheap and simple breathing monitor in intensive care wards is causing unnecessary deaths in patients, warn doctors. The consultant anesthetists conducted a national study and found that the monitor known as capnograph could considerably diminish deaths and brain damage due to constraint to the airways.
A capnograph can notice problems the instant they occur and instantly alert staff to intervene. The monitor is already used globally in intensive care units. A capnograph works by measuring carbon dioxide in exhaled breath to confirm that the patient is breathing adequately. According to experts using capnograph may avoid up to seventy-four percent of breathing related deaths in intensive care wards.
The breathing problems were also found to be more prone to be deadly to patients sedated on intensive care units than if they occurred during anesthesia for surgery. Of the incidents reported in intensive care units sixty percent escorted to death or brain damage, in comparison to fourteen percent of incidents during anesthesia.
Several patients at utmost risk of breathing complications are those with other health problems like obesity. The report revealed that obese patients had more than double at the risk of airway problems when they required a general anaesthetic in comparison to non-obese patients. The report monitored all airway complications recorded between 2008 and 2009 in IICU’s and operation theatres.
Out of nearly one hundred and ninety reports of complications, forty resulted in a death. Sixteen of these deaths happened while under general anaesthetic in the operating theatre, eighteen occurred on intensive care units and four in emergency departments. Breathing complications during major operations can cause grave problems and even death whilst under general anaesthetic.
According to report author Dr Tim Cook, who is a consultant anesthetist from the Royal United Hospital in Bath, the single most important change that would save lives is the use of a simple breathing monitor, which would have recognized or prevented most of the events that were reported.
They recommend that a capnograph is used for all patients receiving help with breathing on ICU. Greater use of this device will save lives. The introduction of capnography to more ICUs would require modest cost and some training of nurses and those doctors who are not familiar with its use, added Dr Cook.