Physical Medicine Interventions to Avoid Acute Respiratory Failure and Invasive Airway Tubes

Proposed Decannulation Criteria for COVID-19 Patients

ABSTRACT

A 66-yr-old man had been intubated for 21 days for severe COVID-19 infection. He then underwent tracheotomy, retained the tube for 2 mos, and then was discharged home on 10 liters of O2/min breathing via a tracheostomy collar. We were consulted for tracheostomy tube decannulation. Mechanical insufflation-exsufflation was used via the tracheostomy tube to clear secretions, increase vital capacity, and normalize O2 saturation. He practiced nasal and mouthpiece noninvasive ventilatory support once a capped fenestrated cuffless tracheostomy tube was placed, although he did not need noninvasive ventilatory support after decannulation. He was decannulated despite O2 dependence. Although he required antibiotics for almost 3 mos before decannulation and after it, he had no further episodes of lung infection for at least the next 4 mos from the point of decannulation.

Daytime noninvasive ventilatory support for patients with ventilatory pump failure: a narrative review

Over the past three decades, the use of noninvasive ventilation or "NIV" to assuage symptoms of hypoventilation for patients with early onset or mild ventilatory pump failure has been extended to up to the use of continuous noninvasive ventilatory support (CNVS) at full ventilatory support settings as a definitive alternative to tracheostomy mechanical ventilation. NVS, along with mechanical insufflation-exsufflation, now provides a noninvasive option for the management of both chronic and acute respiratory failure for these patients. The most common diagnoses for which these methods are useful include chest wall deformities, neuromuscular diseases, morbid obesity, high level spinal cord injury and idiopathic, primary or secondary disorders of the ventilatory control. Thus, NVS is being used in diverse settings: critical care units, medical wards, at home, and in extended care. The aim of this review is to examine the techniques used for daytime support.

Association of Need for Tracheotomy With Decreasing Mechanical In-Exsufflation Flows in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Although patients with lower motor neuron and myopathic disorders can prolong their lives by depending on continuous noninvasive ventilatory support, most patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) cannot and must use tracheostomy mechanical ventilation to prolong survival. This case demonstrates that this occurs because amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients' upper motor neuron reflex laryngeal closure and stridor cause upper airway collapse that renders mechanical insufflation-exsufflation (MIE) ineffective in expulsing airway secretions as well as for permitting continuous noninvasive ventilatory support. A decrease in MIE-exsufflation flows is a marker for a decrease in upper airway patency that renders MIE ineffective. As airway secretions accumulate and baseline oxyhemoglobin saturation decreases, tracheotomy becomes necessary for further survival. This case demonstrates an association between diminishing MIE-exsufflation flow and need to resort to tracheotomy.

Noninvasive Respiratory Management of Patients With Neuromuscular Disease

This review article describes definitive noninvasive respiratory management of respiratory muscle dysfunction to eliminate need to resort to tracheotomy. In 2010 clinicians from 22 centers in 18 countries reported 1,623 spinal muscular atrophy type 1 (SMA1), Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis users of noninvasive ventilatory support (NVS) of whom 760 required it continuously (CNVS). The CNVS sustained their lives by over 3,000 patient-years without resort to indwelling tracheostomy tubes. These centers have now extubated at least 74 consecutive ventilator unweanable patients with DMD, over 95% of CNVS-dependent patients with SMA1, and hundreds of others with advanced neuromuscular disorders (NMDs) without resort to tracheotomy. Two centers reported a 99% success rate at extubating 258 ventilator unweanable patients without resort to tracheotomy. Patients with myopathic or lower motor neuron disorders can be managed noninvasively by up to CNVS, indefinitely, despite having little or no measurable vital capacity, with the use of physical medicine respiratory muscle aids. Ventilator-dependent patients can be decannulated of their tracheostomy tubes.