Evidence-Based Guidelines for Weaning and Discontinuing Ventilatory Support*

TL;DR: Airway management in ICU presents unique challenges due to less experienced multidisciplinary teams, necessitating planning, forethought, and a difficult airway algorithm to mitigate risks, with considerations for drug, equipment, and tracheostomy timing choices.

TL;DR: The Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale (RASS) as discussed by the authors has been validated for reliability and validity in the ICU by a prospective cohort study, and the results showed that the RASS showed significant differences between levels of consciousness.

TL;DR: If the patient requires invasive mechanical ventilation, the focus should be on avoiding ventilator-induced lung injury and minimizing intrinsic positive end-expiratory pressure, which may require limiting ventilation and "permissive hypercapnia."

TL;DR: The basics of airway management and mechanical ventilation in the neurological patient are reviewed and the current state of the literature evaluating extubation criteria in the Neurological patient is reviewed.

TL;DR: The patient is a 28-year-old man whose acute onset of shortness of breath and vague chest pain began shortly after completing a 10-hour auto trip, and the physician is very apprehensive about his symptoms.

TL;DR: You are back where you were in the previous article1 on diagnostic tests: in the library studying an article that will guide you in interpreting ventilation-perfusion (V/Q) lung scans.

TL;DR: Daily screening of the respiratory function of adults receiving mechanical ventilation, followed by trials of spontaneous breathing in appropriate patients and notification of their physicians when the trials were successful, can reduce the duration of mechanical ventilation and the cost of intensive care and is associated with fewer complications than usual care.

TL;DR: A prospective, randomized, multicenter study involving 546 patients who had received mechanical ventilation for a mean of 7.5±6.1 days and who were considered by their physicians to be ready for weaning, randomly assigned to undergo one of four weaning techniques.