Staying alive

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Staying alive life support
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• Life support, in medicine is a broad term that
  refers to a medical intervention used to keep
  someone alive if they are unable to survive on
  their own they could be critically ill or
  injured. There are many therapies and techniques
  that may be used by clinicians to achieve the
  goal of sustaining life. Some examples include
• Feeding tubes/artificial nutrition
• Mechanical ventilation
• Dialysis
• Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
• Defibrillation
• Heart and lung machines

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Feeding tubes

• A feeding tube is a medical device used to
  provide nutrition to patients who
• can not swallow correctly
• were born with defects in mouth,
• esophagus or stomach
• cannot eat enough by food to stay healthy

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Feeding tubes

• - feeding tubes can be temporary or lifelong
• - the tubes are made of polyurethane or silicone
  and can be inserted through the nose or into the
  stomach (gastrostomy)

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Mechanical ventilation

• A way to mechanically help or replace spontaneous
  breathing in the short or long term
• It is often used when people are anesthetized or
  cannot otherwise breathe on their own (e.g.
  respiratory failure due to emphysema, etc.)

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• Ventilation can be accomplished with a machine
  called a ventilator or a bag that can be
  compressed.

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• The insertion of a tube for air (or fluids) is
  called intubation

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Dialysis

• Replacement of lost kidney function for people
  with kidney damage or renal failure.
• Dialysis machines help remove wastes from the
  body and also remove fluids (two functions of the
  kidneys)

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Defibrillation

• The delivery of therapeutic doses of electrical
  energy to parts of the ventricles to
  re-establish normal contractions in a heart that
  has dangerous arrhythmia or is in cardiac arrest
  with a device called a defibrillator.

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Defibrillators

• Four types
• 1. Advanced Life Support units in hospitals and
  in ambulances, monitors many parameters
• 2. Automatic external difibrillators
• for lay people and found in airports,
• schools and other public places

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• 3. Implantable cardioverter defibrillators
  modified pace makers
• 4. Wearable defibrillators interim
• option for people with a known heart
• condition but who cant have an implant.

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Heart and Lung machines

• Cardiac surgery requires life support devices
• These machines are a temporary measure that
  circulates the blood for you and breathes for you
• - commonly used in heart surgery it's difficult
  to operate on a beating heart!

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Heart lung machine
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• Life support techniques are most often used in
  the emergency department, intensive care units
  and in the operating room.
• But now with their development, some can be used
  more and more outside of the hospital.
• Eg. People can go home with ventilators
• automated external defibrillators are
  available in many public places
• Defibrillators in the jacket pocket