Introduction
The intensive care unit is also known as critical care. It is a section of the hospital that provides treatment to persons who are in dangerous conditions and require close supervision, constant attention, life support equipment as well as medicines to ensure healthy body functioning.
A respiratory Patient is an individual receiving respiratory medical attention from a well-supervised medical practitioner, and such a patient get breathing support with the help of a ventilator to facilitate the process of breathing to improve the health status.
A care plan is a written document that provides direction for individualized care for a patient; it contains the list of diagnoses of the patient as well as the patient’s specific medications or needs.
Importance of having a care plan
A care plan for ICU patients with respiratory problems has a great deal of importance in saving the individual’s lives. A complete care plan therebefore enhances the chance of the patients to survive. A functional care plan should be adopted to improve the lives of patients with such conditions. The following include importance of the care plan for the patients with respiratory b condition using the ventilators to serving.
First of all, the evaluation of the actual amount of care required for such patients. The effective care plan helps in the determination of the patient requires in terms of needs and desires.
Secondly, it enables the care providers to effectively evaluate the products, for example, the appropriate medical requirement for the patients. This plays a vital role in the creation of an enabling environment to meet the patient’s needs in terms of medical conditions.
It also increases the chance of the patient to survive; survivability is the priority of using the ventilators. Practical assessment as a result of efficient health care plan improves the chances of the patients to survive.
A Ventilator is a machine designed to help a person to carry out breathing functions effectively; it usually ensures enough quantity of oxygen goes into the lungs of the patients, and also carbon dioxide cleaned and removed out of the patient lungs.
Importance of a ventilator as a tool for the care plan.
Ventilators play an essential role in enhancing the patient’s ability to breathe as the use of the respirator has affected the medical operation, especially during the following instances, During surgery. A ventilator can temporarily do the breathing for you while you’re under general anaesthesia, Recovering from surgery. Sometimes people need a ventilator to help them breathe for hours or even days after surgery.
The effects of a ventilator have also proved to be of importance to the patience with consistent breathing problems. For instance, When breathing on your own is very difficult. A ventilator can help you breathe if you have lung disease or another condition that makes breathing difficult or impossible.
Complications associated with ventilators.
The use of ventilators to solve respiratory problems have is associated with a list of complication. Such which include;
Causation of infections. The use of a ventilator for breathing associate the insertion of the breathing tubes into the patient’s lungs. This mode of care often results in injection of minute bacteria into the lungs of the individual in the process. This greatly results to the introduction of the bacteria which end up causing devastating harm to the patient’s lungs and the whole body as a result as it leads to the emergence of the disease known as ventilator-associated pneumonia.
It may also lead to lung damage. The use of a ventilator often ends up too large amounts of oxygen consumption. Extreme care should be administered to prevent the rise in the levels of oxygen inhaled to reaching the toxic levels, which might end up impairing the walls and vital lung tissues. The use of ventilators for the care of the patients has also posed a risk of lung damage. This impacts negatively on the actual viability of the patients. It also affects the survival rate of the patient negatively.
It may cause delirium – strong medications used when one is using a ventilator my cause one to have poor memories, paranoia and one may experience trouble sleeping. Such condition results in problems in the patient’s lifestyle; hence adequate care is required for the patients in the ICU under the ventilator’s help to minimize the impacts of the same.
Also, due to a lack of movement when one is bedridden and is using a ventilator, one may develop bedsores that develop into skin infections. The skin infections often impact negatively on the patients; hence intensive care required to effectively monitor the patient required. Finally, the removal of the breathing tubes of the ventilator may damage the vocal cords.
Patients on a ventilator require designated care that will eventually minimize the occurrence o any of the above conditions in order to effectively reduce the stay of such patients in the ventilators. The care providers should, therefore, practice better and high-quality services to ensure that the breathing of such patients is restored back to normal. The care offered also determines the mortality rate as the mortality rate of the patients in ICU is often higher than those out of the ICU.
During the 20th century, patients using mechanical ventilation were exposed to severe sedation, paralysis, and immobilization. Over the years, dome research has been carried out, leading to the management of sedation, mobilization, and family involvement for patients in the intensive care unit using ventilators.
Nurses have the most important role among health care workers (HCWs) in each hospital (Aiken et al., 2008) [1]. Nurses’ education can lead to the improvement of nursing care If it is implemented and designed based on nurses’ needs and proper principles (Aiken et al., 2008) [1]. Nowadays, increased quality of the treatment and increased the chances of survival of patients with acute respiratory failure are very important (Teixeira et al., 2013)
Care plan
Having known the importance of the actual care plan for the patients under ICU using the ventilators for their respiratory purposes, the following is, therefore, a stipulated measure to ensure that the patients are well catered for and taken care of.
Outline
-Maintenance of the patient’s airway
-Assessment of the patients level of oxygen saturation
-Assessment of important policy
-Assessment of the patients’ blood pressure during the ventilator change process
-Assessment of the patient’s pain, needs, and also the appropriate desires and sedation needs of the patients.