Procedure - Intubation Flashcards
When you’re assessing how difficult someone may be to obtain an airway on, what two things should you assess?
- PMH (Past difficult intubations? Past problems with anesthesia? Snoring?)
- Head and neck anatomy
** Look in their chart for past intubation attempts, if you have time. They might be listed as procedure notes or under author-specialty anesthesia.
Review the four grades of laryngoscopy.
I: vocal cords fully visualizes
II: only posterior vocal cords visualized
III: only epiglottis seen (think 3piglottis)
IV: no recognizable airway structures
Review predictors of difficult intubation.
- Obesity
- Edema of the head and neck
- Jaw: micrognathia, retrognathia
- Neck: short thyromental distance (less than 6 cm or 3 finger lengths from tip of thyroid cartilage to chin with neck maximally extended), large neck, neck trauma, limited range of neck motion
- Mouth: large teeth, small mouth, inability to prognath (bring lower incisors in front of higher incisors), tonsillar hypertrophy
Why are rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis important diagnoses to document before airway attempts?
Limited neck ROM predicts difficult attempts
Review the Mallampati grading system.
I: Hard palate, soft palate, full uvula, tonsillar pillars
II: Hard palate, soft palate, partial
III: Hard palate, soft palate, base of uvula
IV: Hard palate
Edentulous patients often require a ____________ for bag-mask ventilation.
oropharyngeal airway
What is trismus?
The inability to open the mouth fully
Why are bearded men considered difficult airways?
It can be difficult to bag-mask them – because of lacking the seal – so intubation attempts are riskier.
How are nasal trumpets measured?
Nares to ear
What is Graham Snyder’s tip of intubation?
Move slowly and look for the epiglottis. More often than not, you fail by going too deep and ending up in the esophagus. You’ll think the esophagus is still the tongue and go deeper or lift harder, to no avail.
If you’re using a Miller blade and the tongue is in the way, try _____________.
sliding the blade just to the patient’s right so that the tongue flops to the left – out of your way
If you are in the vallecula and you lift upwards but still can’t see the vocal cords, try _____________.
extending the patient’s neck slightly
What is the 332 rule?
These make it easier to intubate:
- 3 fingers in the mouth
- 3 fingers beneath chin
- 2 fingers above cricothyroid and below jaw
What can you do to the bed to make intubation easier?
- Make sure the wheels are locked
- Make the height comfortable for you
- Tilt the bed slightly reverse trendelenburg
If you right mainstem, the pull back how many cm?
1
Bougies are used in what scenario?
When you can’t get an ET tube in the trachea but you can see it. You then put the bougie into the airway and slide the ETT over it.
What is the dose of succinylcholine for intubation?
2 mg/kg
What is the RSI dose of etomidate?
0.3 mg/kg
Why is rocuronium used in children?
The incidence of undiagnosed neuromuscular disorders that could cause hyperkalemia with succinylcholine is higher in kids.
True or false: you need to have absent gag reflexes to do RSI.
False
RSI involves the use of sedating drugs specifically to dampen reflexes with intubation. If someone already has absent reflexes (such as in a code when they are completely unresponsive), then they may not need RSI drugs.
What are the indications for a surgical airway?
Glottis edema
Significant oropharyngeal bleeding
Laryngeal fracture
Failure to intubate and failure to bag mask
If you advance your laryngoscope as far as it will go and you still don’t see epiglottis, then consider trying ____________ before withdrawing completely and trying the next size up of laryngoscope.
repositioning your scope by coming in from the right so that the tongue pushes to the left of the blade
This can help you “get farther” into the oropharynx because you aren’t fighting against the tongue.
What is a standard laryngoscope size for adults?
Macintosh 3 (for smaller adults) or 4 (for larger adults
What is a standard ETT size for adults?
7.5 mm