Dual Treatment Helps Wean Patients From Ventilators

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What's more, wake up-and-breathe patients were about a third less likely to die during the year after the trial than were patients given usual care, Girard's team found.

The study is published in the Jan. 12 issue of The Lancet.

"We believe the implications of these results are that the wake up-and-breathe protocol should be routine practice in the management of mechanically ventilated medical intensive care unit patients," Girard said.

"Because the protocol involves the discontinuation of sedation and mechanical ventilation, instead of the addition of potentially risky new procedures or medications, we anticipate that the protocol will be widely adopted," he added.

One expert thinks this protocol is an advance in critical care.

"This is a tremendous finding. It's an important advance in critical care," said Dr. J. Randall Curtis, vice president of the American Thoracic Society and a professor of medicine at the University of Washington.

"Instituting this protocol in most intensive care units would improve outcomes by getting patients off the ventilator faster, reducing sedation, and, it appears, it would also improve survival," he said.

Curtis noted that in his hospital they do breathing tests and reduced sedation, but they haven't linked the two as was done in the study. "Linking the two in a more formal way is something I would try in my hospital," he said.

More information

To learn more about critical care, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.