Ebook: Difficult Airway Management

OUP, 2009 - 181 pages.
The establishment of optimal oxygenation and ventilation of the patient's lungs is a fundamental goal of every anaesthetic and essential to patient safety. Anaesthetists achieve this by a variety of tools and techniques. Whilst this is uneventful in the majority of cases, difficulties do arise. The consequences of failure may be catastrophic to both the patient and the anaesthetist.
Much progress has been made in the understanding of causative factors and management of difficult airway scenarios in the last 15 years. Guidelines from various national societies have played a pivotal role in defining a structured approach for these scenarios and industry has responded by the introduction of new equipment.
It is therefore important for the clinical anaesthetist, faced with airway difficulties on a regular basis, to approach its management in a structured, practical fashion. There are many approaches to difficult airway management In this book we have used one that is familiar to us and one that we routinely teach. Our approach is based on a scheme based on the 5 'P's - Preoperative assessment, Planning. Procedures, Post procedures and Publicity. The scheme is used to describe management of scenarios - the anticipated (with and without airway obstruction) and unanticipated (can't intubate - can and can't ventilate) difficult airway. Some special situations relating to patient (e.g. paediatrics, obstetrics, obesity) and environmental factors (e.g. emergency room) are covered separately. Separate chapters describing basic anatomical and physiological aspects, as well as the latest equipment and training aspects, ensure that all aspects of the subject are covered.
Each chapter is written in a concise, structured way and includes key points and a further reading list The emphasis is to describe the approach in a simple, easy to understand and practical way; where appropriate techniques are described in detail. All the authors are members of the Oxford Region Airway Group (ORAG). This group was formally convened in September 2004. to provide a forum for anaesthetists in the Oxford Region to advance airway related training, audit and research.