PulmCrit – Optimizing the respiratory drive to avoid failure

Scott Weingart just posted a podcast about management of the hypercapneic, obtunded COPD patient who is failing BiPAP.  Do we need to intubate these patients, or could we somehow clear their CO2 noninvasively?  This post will start off by exploring respiratory drive as a mediator of disease.  With that groundwork, we'll explore the obtunded COPD patient.

EMCrit by Josh Farkas.

http://ift.tt/2AnyFSk