Best Methods Of Aspiration Pneumonia Prevention

By Karen Roberts


Aspiration pneumonia is basically an infection which affects the lungs and is supposed to be caused by food materials or liquid particles which goes down through the trachea to the lungs. Any individuals who might be diagnosed with this kind of a disease are always referred to the SLP which stands for special language pathologists whose work involves swallowing problem evaluation. There are several proven strategies which can be used in aspiration pneumonia prevention for those individuals who might be at high risk.

The long term prevention strategies tends to greatly involve a team approach. Nurses, dietitians, physicians, nursing assistants plus rehab professionals all tend to play a great role especially in the plan care but services of special language pathologists are also required as they are the ones who evaluate the swallowing ability of an individual while at the same time determining adequate food and liquids intake.

Sedation tends to minimize both the gag reflexes together with the cough while interfering with the ability of a patient to handle the secretions of the oropharyngeal and gastric reflux content. Sedation is also necessary as it effectively slows down the gastric discharging. It is always advisable to use the lowest effective sedation level with aim of effectively minimizing the risk of this particular disease.

The feeding tube place assessment at some regular intervals is also a crucial preventive method. A specialist panel concerned with this illness have suggested that proper tube placement must be verified at some intervals regularly if the risk associated with contracting this disease is to be reduced. In the instances where tube feeding is actually administered at incorrect positions then the chances of contracting aspiration is greatly increased.

In reality it is not common for the feeding tube to be malposition especially during the routine use. It is also necessary to effectively assess the gastrointestinal intolerance especially with regards to the tube feeding. Those patients who feed through tubes tend to experience regular regurgitation as well as gastric content aspiration and tend to be high risk for very poor outcomes of respiration.

Those who might be viewed to be at risks are supposed to go through a thorough intervention which focuses on immune system support. For instance such an intervention encourages fluid and food intake at meals. It is also important to treat a condition known as GI as it might hinder nutrients absorption.

In reality some individuals might not be able to effectively from these kind of interventions. In such a case the documentation plus the prognosis of residents need to indicate that this inability or probably refusal is actually a constant and unavoidable situation coming from diagnosis of a resident.

It has always been viewed that aspiration pneumonia does not actually have a single cause since it is a chain of events starting with some serious medical stress which is then followed by alteration of immune response, oral bacterial growth and then aspiration of oropharyngeal discharges and the events then end up as pneumonia.




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