Airway Emergency: Start With The Basics of Airway Management
A case of “can’t intubate- can’t ventilate is discussed which illustrates the importance of always using good techniques of basic airway management. Read More …
Category: Intubation
Hair Style Can Impact Intubation
Last weekend I spent time with the charity group Healing Little Heroes at the San Diego Rady’s Children’s Hospital, and Ronald McDonald House. The mission of Healing Little Heroes Foundation is to help pediatric patients in hospitals and outpatient settings to heal emotionally and mentally by appearing as Superheroes. My good friend, and general surgeon, Justin Wu, dressed below as Darth Vader, set up the Foundation.
On this day we arrived in full Star Wars costumes to entertain the kids and their families. I’m dressed as Queen Amidala. Which brings me to the topic of today’s conversation. Can hairstyle impact your intubation or even your anesthetic management? The answer is yes. For example, there is no question that if Queen Amidala needed emergency intubation, that her hairstyle would get in the way. Read More …
Intubation With Airway Bleeding and Massive Emesis
During intubation, any liquid in the mouth that obscures the view of larynx not only hinders visualization, it risks aspiration. We’re used to being able to rapidly suction the mouth clear or secretions, blood, or vomit and then have a clear view of the larynx. But sometimes, either because of continued profuse bleeding or massive emesis, fluid continues to accumulate while we’re watching. How can you manage this situation and successfully intubate? This article discusses two prior cases and offers suggestions on intubation when massive emesis or blood interfere with visualization. Read More …
Intubation With A Curved Blade
Direct laryngoscopy depends on being able to bring the 3 axes of the airway into alignment to see the larynx. Straight and curved blades use different techniques for bringing the larynx into view. Curved blades are commonly used, especially by beginners because they are more forgiving of less than optimal placement and provide more room to pass the tube. However, it’s important to use them correctly. This article will discuss intubation technique using a curved blade. Read More …
Intubation: Step By Step
Fall is the time of year when new students commonly begin to learn how to intubate. My first intubation was one of the first times I literally held someone’s life in my hands. I was nervous. The anesthesiologist teaching me tried to not look too anxious as I awkwardly grabbed my laryngoscope blade, fumbled while opening the patient’s mouth, and cautiously maneuvered the endotracheal tube into the trachea. It felt like time stopped until the tube was in place, after which the three of us (me, my teacher and my patient) all took a deep breath. Since then, over the last almost 37 years, I’ve intubated thousands of people in the U.S. and, as an international volunteer, eight countries.
So I thought it would be helpful at this time of year to discuss a step-by-step approach to intubation with the commonly used curved blade. Intubation, like a dance, is composed to steps that flow naturally from one to the next. The trick to a smooth intubation is to allow each step to blend seamlessly together. The description and illustrations below are excerpted from my book Anyone Can Intubate, where you can find more detail about this and many other topics. Read More …
Tips To Teaching Intubation
With fall comes the new crop of trainees eager to learn how to intubate. There will also be a new group of instructors teaching their first students to intubate. Teaching intubation skills on living patients, even those that have practiced on a manikin, can be challenging. It’s important to anticipate the common errors so we can safeguard our patients. Read More …
Anticipated Difficult Intubation: Should I Intubate The Patient Awake?
When facing any intubation, you must decide whether the intubation is safer to be performed asleep or awake. Many providers are uncomfortable with performing awake intubations and leave it as a last resort. There are a variety of reasons for this discomfort, including lack of experience and/or the fear that the patient will remember the intubation and think poorly of their care. However, awake intubation can be a safe and comfortable strategy in many clinical situations. This article discusses some of the criteria for deciding when to do an awake intubation. Read More …
Avoiding Difficult Intubation Of The Easy Airway
We’ve all done it. It’s extremely easy to make any otherwise routine intubation difficult just by failing to properly position the patient or to use optimal technique. This article discusses the various ways you can adjust patient positioning and use your equipment to make intubation easy. Read More …
Intubating An Infant or Toddler
This article discussion some of the key points to intubating an infant or small child safely. Providers who infrequently care for infants and children less than two years of age are often rightfully anxious when faced with a sick child, especially if airway management is required. This is especially true if the child is less than one. Healthy respect is certainly indicated because airway complications are one of the leading causes of pediatric cardiac arrest.
Intubating an infant or small child is more of a challenge than an older child or adult both because of their anatomical differences as well as their physiologic predisposition for hypoxia. However, anyone who can intubate an adult can also intubate an infant or toddler safely if they take these differences in anatomy and physiology into account and are gentle and methodical in their approach.
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Positioning The Head For Intubation
This article discusses the different ways of placing the patient in the sniffing position and the advantages and disadvantages of each to improve first pass intubation success. Position of the head and neck for intubation can make intubation easy, or hard.
Many years ago our operating room administration Removed the towels we had been using to position the head for intubation. It may be an exaggeration to say that chaos ensued, but it felt like that.
For the next several days our anesthesia providers had trouble intubating. We likened it to an expert golfer who, when suddenly faced with a new set of golf clubs of slightly different weight and length, suddenly has to relearn the game. It made us realize that how we position the head in the sniffing position often sets us up for either an easy or for a more difficult intubation if you don’t realize what’s happening during the positioning. Read More …
Apneic Oxygenation: Increase Your Patient’s Margin Of Safety During Intubation
Breathing room air, oxygen saturation drops precipitously to below 90% within about a minute of the start of apnea in the average healthy adult. While preoxygenation is one of the most important safety measures we can use prior to induction of anesthesia and in preparation for intubation, apneic oxygenation can allow even more time for intubation to occur. Apneic oxygenation using nasal cannula can significantly delay the onset of critical hypoxia.
To Extubate, Or Not to Extubate, That Is The Question
Deciding when to extubate a patient safely can sometimes be a difficult decision. Removal of an endotracheal tube when you are not sure of the diagnosis is a risk not to be taken lightly. This case discusses assessing extubation criteria in the face of ambiguous respiratory symptoms. Read More …
Awake Intubation With The GlideScope
One of the most challenging scenarios to face is a tumor in the airway. Working closely with your surgeon is important. In these days of advanced technology, we often avoid awake intubate because of concern of causing the patient pain or distress. However, sometimes awake intubation is the safest way to proceed and if you are gentle and prepare the patient well, it can be comfortable as well. The Glidescope is another tool you can use for awake intubation. Read More …
Use Of A Nasal Airway To Assist Ventilation During Fiberoptic Intubation
Attaching a nasal airway to a breathing circuit as a tool to assist or control ventilation is a very helpful trick to have in challenging airway management situations. This technique is particularly helpful during blind nasal intubation or fiberoptic intubation in young children after induction of general anesthesia for surgery, although it can be used in adults. Here we discuss use of this technique for a case of accidental extubation of a patient with Ludwig’s Angina.
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Tongue Necrosis From Endotracheal Tube Compression
Tongue necrosis from compression by an endotracheal tube or oral airway is a rare, but devastating complications when it occurs. It can occur with poor endotracheal tube positioning, flexed head and neck positioning, impaired blood flow, and shock. It is important to familiarize ourselves with this entity so that we as anesthesia providers can minimize the risks.
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A Case of Endotracheal Tube Obstruction
Normally we view patients who are intubated as being protected in terms of ventilatory support. However, being intubated makes the patient vulnerable to a variety of potential problems. Rapid deterioration of an intubated patient can be a challenging and frightening scenario because the providers must rapidly troubleshoot the causes as well as treat. Here a case of endotracheal tube obstruction and its management is described. Read More …
Glidescope: Tricks For Successful Intubation
Glidescopes are very easy to use, but intubation with the Glidescope is very different than direct laryngoscopy. I have seen many novice Glidescope users struggle to intubate, despite having great views of the larynx. Failure to recognize the differences of using the Glidescope can make intubation not only frustrating but also hazardous to your patient. Beginners almost always make the same few easy to correct mistakes. This article discusses those mistakes and how to correct them. Read More …
The Bougie: Use Wisely To Avoid Rare But Serious Complications
One of the simplest and most valuable devices to help with a difficult intubation is the bougie. The primary use is a difficult intubation, when you cannot see the larynx well but are able to predict where the glottic opening should be based on anatomy. This article discusses techniques as well as potential complications. Bougies must be used with care to avoid patient injury. Read More …
Risks of Placing Your Endotracheal Cuff Too High
When intubating, we all know to check the depth of the endotracheal tube. Most people believe this is just to ensure that the tube is not too deep and therefore causing a mainstem intubaton: intubating just one bronchus and therefore only one lung. However, there are significant risks with having the tube too shallow as well, risks such as accidental extubation and potentially causing permanent damage to the recurrent laryngeal nerves. Here we discuss some of the warning signs that the cuff is too high and what to do about it. Read More …
Should I Use A Cuffed or Uncuffed Endotracheal Tube In a Child?
When intubating children, the question always arises whether to use a cuffed or an uncuffed endotracheal tube (ETT). Historically uncuffed endotracheal tubes have been used when the child is less than about 8 years old. Why is it that we can get away with using an uncuffed tube in a young child, but not an adult? The answer comes from the difference in airway anatomy between child and adult. Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of using uncuffed and cuffed tubes in children is important to safe patient care. Read More …