[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Airway Management
Practice guidelines are systematically developed recommendations that assist the practitioner and patient in making decisions about health care. These recommendations may be adopted, modified, or rejected according to clinical needs and constraints.
Practice guidelines are not intended as standards or absolute requirements. The use of practice guidelines cannot guarantee any specific outcome.
Practice guidelines are subject to revision as warranted by the evolution of medical knowledge, technology, and practice. They provide basic recommendations that are supported by analysis of the current literature and by a synthesis of expert opinion, open forum commentary, and clinical feasibility data.
An airway history should be conducted, whenever feasible, prior to the initiation of anesthetic care and airway management in all patients.
The intent of the airway history is to detect medical, surgical, and anesthetic factors that may indicate the presence of a difficult airway. Examination of previous anesthetic records, if available in a timely manner, may yield useful information about airway management.
In patients with no gross upper airway pathology or anatomical anomaly, there is insufficient published evidence to evaluate the effect of a physical examination on predicting the presence of a difficult airway.
However, there are suggestive data that findings obtained from an airway physical examination may be related to the presence of a difficult airway. This support is based upon recognized associations between the difficult airway and a variety of airway characteristics. The consultants and Task Force agree that an airway physical examination may improve the detection of a difficult airway.
Deep tracheal suctioning is a sterile procedure which is performed to mobilize secretions from the patient's airway. By aspiration through a suction catheter placed proximal to the secretions. Airway suctioning removes excess secretions and promotes the cough reflex to help in maintaining a clear airway....
