Just a random question. I was doing some research on my own and stumbled across this youtube video:
I don't know who the child is or why she is on ECMO but what caught me off guard was that she was sitting up, not sedated, not intubated and interacting with her family around her. It astounded me! I work in a nicu so most of our ecmo babies are PPHN or CDH (causing pphn) so by physiology of the disease are usually intubated and somewhat or very sedated. I also know in our PICU/CICU ecmo kids are typically very well sedated. I was wondering if there were units (well obviously there are per the video) that do not sedate children on ECMO and how well that works? Also what would cause a child to be so sick to need ECMO but not need to be intubated and ventilated as well??
I am very curious about this and love to learn so am interested to hear your thoughts. If you make it to the end you will get to the part I almost jumped out of my seat at...grandma getting ready to wash her hair and helping to reposition her with no one apparently watching the cannula in her neck!