Anaesthesia | Trauma | Airway management in trauma

Airway management in trauma
Session Overview
Description
This session will cover the techniques for managing the airway in the severely-injured patient.

Learning Objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Explain basic airway techniques for the trauma patient
• Describe cervical spine control in the trauma patient
• Describe rapid sequence induction and intubation in the trauma patient
• Recognize strategies for airway rescue in the severely-injured patient: supraglottic airway devices, cricothyroidotomy

Prerequisites
Before commencing this session you should complete:

• Module 03/Trauma/Primary and secondary survey/The primary survey (001-0356)

Airway management and cervical spine control is the first priority in the primary survey. Sufficient oxygen must be delivered to the tissues to avoid lethal organ failure and secondary central nervous system damage.

Airway management in the trauma patient can be challenging – the resuscitation room is busy and noisy, manual in-line stabilization reduces the quality of view at laryngoscopy, the patient often has a full stomach, and there may be considerable pressure to process the patient rapidly.