Mechanical Ventilation In Nursing

Mechanical ventilation is defined as using a device that is called a ventilator to provide positive pressure oxygen flow to a patient who have partially or fully lost the ability to breath on their own. Typically patients will require a ventilator for anesthesia during surgeries, or respiratory compromise due to trauma or some sort of illness. When people imagine a ventilated patient they constantly think of the unconscious person who sustained some sort of major trauma who are more than likely brain dead. However there are many patients that have lost the ability to breathe that are now regaining consciousness only to find they cannot breath on their own. This condition could be permanent or they could take some time to regain the ability to breathe on their own in a process called weaning.

Mechanical ventilation often causes major distress and anxiety in these patients.

The sensation of breathlessness, frequent suctioning, inability to talk, vagueness regarding their surroundings or ailment, discomfort, isolation from others, and fear contribute to high levels of anxiety. These high levels of anxiety are thought to be high contributing factors in patients having difficulty weaning off of ventilator support. “Patients who are unable to wean from the ventilator are often transferred from surgical, medical, and cardio-thoracic intensive care units to pulmonary step-down units for the weaning process (Hunter, Bryan C., et al 2015 pg 200).” Researcher have decided to take a different approach to easing the stress and anxiety related to ventilated patients by the using soothing music instead of pharmaceutical

interventions.
In the beginning of the study researchers selected 80 different mechanically ventilated patient with all different reason they were ventilator dependent. Theses’ patients were monitored by their nurses more than normal and the “…nurses were told to take the patient’s vital signs every 5 minutes to try to detect any signs of stress (Hanlon 2015 pg 1).” The nursing staffs all noted that their patient’s vital signs were elevated throughout the day especially in the patients that were that were conscious but ventilator dependent. Doctors and researches took all of the data collected over the course of three months and determined that majority of their patients were experiencing high levels of stress while the ventilators were operating at full capacity. Even higher levels of stress were found in the patients that were regaining consciousness after a major trauma only to find that their diaphragm was not strong enough to come off the ventilator.
Research then took surveys from the family on the different types of music the patients enjoyed listening too. Over the course of the next six month these 80 patients were assigned a music therapist that would come in and determine when it was an appropriate time to start and stop each patient’s music therapy for that day. Each patient was monitored and tested while listening to classical music only at first. After the first three months researchers started to notice that the patients vitals were always stable and within normal range while listening to music.
Doctors wanted to test more to see if the patients would respond even more if listening to their own favorite music. For the last three months of testing music therapist played the patients favorite music genre instead of classical. The researchers concluded that
“Respiratory rate and systolic and diastolic blood pressure were reduced significantly after completion of music therapy. Findings support the benefits of music therapy for ventilator dependent patients. Music has the ability to be used as a therapeutic tool for lowering respiratory rate and systolic and diastolic blood pressure in mechanically ventilated patients (Korhan et al. 2015 pg 1032).”
Over the course of the study researchers were able to lower patient’s vitals and ultimately reduce the anxiety of being on a mechanical ventilator just but play music in the room. It is believed that it will not be long before this music therapy takes off in major hospital intensive care units around the world.