Respiratory Toolbox for Kids Struggling to Breathe

It can be scary when a child has a respiratory illness. As caregivers, we do our best to help them with a few treatment options at home. On top of that, we’re not always sure when to get help from a doctor or even a hospital!

Simply put, if your child continues to get worse despite what you’re doing to help at home, let the professionals help! Being proactive in getting help early is always good wisdom to follow. Sometimes despite our best efforts, we need to take our child to the hospital. Let me ease your mind and share what our amazing respiratory therapists do to help your child heal!

Assessing the Problem

Assessment skills are our first line of defense. Since most of our patients are too young to communicate, we have fine-tuned our ability to determine how much support they need. It’s basically our superhero skill! Our next step is to make sure their nose is free from snot. We have suctioning equipment attached to a suction machine to get the job done! If the “snot invasion” has headed south towards the lungs, we may use a spaghetti-like straw (suction catheter) to “fish it out”!

When we listen to their lung sounds using a stethoscope, we can determine other ways to help them breathe easier.

• If we hear wheezing, common with asthma, we give medicine (i.e. albuterol) by a mask or mouthpiece. You’ll see a mist coming out of it, which the kids think is pretty cool.
• If we hear snot (mucus) moving around in their chest (“crackles”), we can do a therapy that loosens it up (chest physiotherapy), so they can cough it out. It’s like how we turn a ketchup bottle upside down and pat it to move the ketchup up and out!

We can measure how much oxygen they have in the blood using a pulse-oximeter, which wraps around a finger, hand, or foot. If it’s a little low, we can give them extra oxygen using a nasal cannula (prongs in the nostrils) or mask that covers their nose and mouth. If they need more oxygen, we can adjust the amount that’s given.

Often, our kiddos just need what has been talked about so far to beat the illness. However, some of our patients need advanced support. Our respiratory therapists have extensive technical knowledge to run highly sophisticated machines!

Non-Invasive Ventilation

Our next line of defense is called non-invasive ventilation. You’ve probably seen it with people who wear masks connected to a CPAP machine at night to treat sleep apnea. Our machines are much more sophisticated and have different ways to support the patient. We use a variety of masks that cover the nose, nose and mouth, and even the entire face. These machines know when a patient takes a breath and helps inflate the lungs to make it easier to breathe.  We can add extra oxygen and give aerosol treatments through the mask. Non-invasive ventilation is used frequently in our pediatric ICU.

Invasive Ventilation

Our last line of defense is called invasive ventilation. When a patient requires maximum support, we insert a breathing tube in their windpipe (trachea) and connect it to a ventilator. Our patients get medicine for pain and sedation while on the ventilator. Respiratory therapists analyze highly technical ventilator data and blood sample lab results to make adjustments that provide the right amount of support. Although this can be very scary for the family, our One Team culture ensures a team of highly skilled professionals are ensuring the best care. Our team of respiratory therapists are ready to meet any challenge, and we treat your child like our own.