How to open the airway is an essential skill that every health provider should know. Of all the airway skills, it’s the easiest to master and the most likely to save lives in respiratory distress and failure. This article details recognizing airway obstruction, techniques to open the airway, and insertion of Read More …
Those of us who ventilate patients have all been there. We’ve been ventilating a patient with a bag-valve-mask device during a prolonged and difficult intubation process and our hand holding the mask starts to cramp. When ventilating a patient with a mask, it’s important to know how to open and airway and provide positive pressure breaths. However, it’s also important to know how to do so in a way that conserves your grip strength. Ventilating with a mask can be very tiring to your hand. Prolonged “masking” can tire your hand to the extent that you lose grip strength and coordination — making maintenance of an open airway harder to sustain over time.
Here we discuss tips on how to ventilate effectively while avoiding hand fatigue. Read More …