needing info on "neuro breath"

This sounds plausible.I mean the body has numerous events that cause a cascade of events like the enzyme he is describing. Think about lactic acid????...when....do we see those levels high?HIT......what causes it.....the bodies "response"...correct???So.....I think your neurosugeon may be correct.......bc neuro breath....no matter how aggressively you do mouth care ......is rancid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!It smells as though a dead animalcrawled up there and died....totallly different than just your long term vented bad mouth smell.So....I buy his theory.Id love to know what this enzymatic reaction is called...other than us just calling it neuro breath though.Good insight though!!!!!!!!!!!!!Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot remember her name, but if you contact the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona there is an advanced practice nurse there who has done extensive research on this. www.thebni.org is the site where you can find the phone number.

Hey TopKAt. I happen to agree that Neuro patients seem to have a distinctly odiferous smell to them. I don't think it has anything to do w/ poor oral care or the use of meds such as mannitol. In my ICU they use mannitol and IRP on septic patients and they do not seem to develop the unique smell of "neuro breath".

I read here you try to keep the Na+ level 150... what is the rationale?

the sodium leve is kept high due to its importance in (a)keeping the serum osmo level up. This encourages osmotic diuresis of cerebral tissues in a much gentler fashion than manitol and (b) for its importance in maintaining the resting membrane potential of neurological tissues. I hope this helped.

ya, interesting. thanks!

I have often noticed that many neuro patients are mouth breathers. When checking those pupils for reaction, shine that flashlight in the roof of your patient's mouth. I just recently found a patient with 1/4" crust of dried mucous there and believe me, it really stunk when trying to dig it out !! I think some nurses think that just swabbing out the mouth is enough, but these mouth breathers really need major oral care, especially in the roof of the mouth !!

Neuro breath as described by other members here is a bit different to that, although I will concede that this can and does happen. The actual "smell" is VERY distinctive and seems to correlate with the degree of brain injury