Many of us think and believe that if a person goes on to mechanical ventilation(ventilator) they doesn’t come back. Is it really true!!!
Usually a person is kept on ventilator when
they have inadequate respiratory efforts by themselves,
when they can’t protect their airway from aspiration(entry of food particles in to trachea) or
when their lungs are severely damaged and they need rest to recover or
when carbon dioxide is accumulated or
when oxygenation is not adequate or
when patient under went a major surgery( like open heart surgery) the body need time to recover and so on…
There are many conditions where the ultimate best shot for the patient is mechanical ventilation and with that they will recover and gradually come off the ventilator.
So don’t always be in a thought that if a person goes on to ventilator, then the chapter is end. Based on the underlying reason the person is being ventilated the prognosis depends. I agree with increasing age the changes of not being able to wean off from ventilator increases and being on ventilation for long time may lead to dependance and also many other complications like infections ARDS and so on
conclusion is that not all reasons for being on ventilator are end of life. It depends on the reason how a person on ventilation responds.
Ventilator should just be thought as temporary support rather than a life term need. There are many cases which needs ventilator support for longer time duration but patient showed improvement over time after proper care.
I think this is a misconception many people have. We often associate a ventilator with the worst-case scenario, but it’s actually a life-support tool that gives the body time to recover. Thanks for explaining it in such a simple way.