Walking From ICU Episode 91- The Awake and Walking ICU in Denmark

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 91: The Awake and Walking ICU in Denmark

Are there any other “Awake and Walking ICUs” outside of Salt Lake City, Utah? Dr. Thomas Strom shares with us his team’s success and research in Denmark. He provides powerful insight into the gaps and future of critical care medicine. Episode Transcription Kali Dayton 0:37 Okay, I am so excited about this really powerful episode.

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Walking From ICU Episode 86 Ventilator Management in the Awake and Walking COVID19 Unit

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 86: Ventilator Management in the Awake and Walking COVID19 Unit

How is the “Awake and Walking ICU” keeping their COVID19 patients mentally and physically functional during severe COVID19? Do they face constant ventilator asynchrony and how do they deal with it? Geoff shares with us his vast experience as a respiratory therapist in walking patients on mechanical ventilation during critical illness and now COVID19. Episode

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Walking From ICU Episode 84 Zentensive Care

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 84: Zentensive Care

How can we manage ventilators to decrease alarms, avoid misdiagnosing/mistreating asynchrony, and improve patient comfort and outcomes? Dr. Matt Siuba, MD, the “Zenintensivist”, shares with us his tools to decrease sedation and neuromuscular blockade use. Episode Transcription Kali Dayton 0:00 Hello, and welcome back. Before we start as the episode you have all been waiting

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I stumbled upon Kali’s podcast midway through my anesthesia critical care fellowship in February 2021. At our institution, I got the impression that patients in the ICU either got better on their own or had a prolonged and complicated course to LTAC or death. In her podcast, Kali explained that LTAC was rarely the outcome for patients in the Awake and Walking ICU in Salt Lake City.

Their ICU survivors hardly ever got trached, PEGed, or sent to LTAC, and literally walked out of the hospital in condition as close to their previous health as they could be. Although the concept of using no sedation on ventilated patients was completely foreign to me, it made sense based on what I had read in the literature. I devoured all of the episodes from the beginning, many of them bringing tears and regret for my ignorance, followed by inspiration and hope in later episodes. Listening to her podcast has been one of the most profound experiences in my short, eight-year career in medicine.

After discovering the no sedation, early mobility practice at the Awake and Walking ICU, my focus shifted to bringing it to my own institution. I visited Salt Lake City in March to witness it with my own eyes. Since then, I’ve been in touch closely with Kali and Louise to learn the practical approaches to sedation wean and sedation avoidance for newly intubated patients in the ICU.
Implementation has been challenged by pushback at the bedside, but knowing how most patients can be off sedation and comfortable allowed me to advocate for the patients. So far, four patients were successfully kept off of sedation after getting intubated, and two of them immediately smiled at me as they woke up from induction meds. Kali and the members of the Awake and Walking ICU have decades of experience in this approach.

Mikita Fuchita, MD

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