my mom is recovering from surgery how long do you normally stay on a trach ventilator? how many days?

Answer 1

For one, don't listent to an "RN" they are not the ones who are weaning people from vents.

It is depedning on how determined your mother is. Normal surgery patients that I have cared for in open heart units, and surgical care units came of the vent within 24 hours of the surgery. If she is in poor overall health, with bad lungs (smoker, asthmatic, etc) then it will take a couple extra days posibly to get her off of the vent.

Her weight also plays a part in it. IF she is morbidly obese, chances are that she also has sleep apnea, it ads to the difficulty of weaning.

make sure the hosptial she is in has the "vent bundle" (by the way it is supose to be a joint commision standard in all hosptials now)
it means that the head of the bed is elevated 45 degrees at all times, suction and mouth care every hour, and daily weaning trials and sedation vacations every morning. this has been proven very effective in preventing "ventilator assisted pnemonias" which is a very bad thing, it leads to longer vent time, longer hosptial stays, and yes a higher death rate.

if you want good iformation on how close she is to coming off the vent, ask to speak to the respiratory therapist, if not them, ask the dr.

Answer 2

it depends on what type of surgery and how well she is breathing on her own. usually, every day, the nurses will try to take the person off of the vent to see how well they can breathe independently. if they do well, they are left off for a while to see how they do. if not, they are put back on the vent. so it really just depends. ask the ICU nurses or the doctors what they are thinking and they may give you a time frame - they are the ones that know your mother's case the best and will have the best idea.

Answer 3

Depends on the type of surgery, your mom's overall general health, her how strong her respiratory muscles are and how much anesthesia was used. There is no set number. Some people come off within hours and some people come off within days.