Elissar News

Doctors noticed that placing the COVID-19 critical and serious patients on prone position or on their abdomens could help increase the quantity of oxygen that could enter the lungs, and might eventually save lives.

According to a CNN health report, American doctors are practicing this procedure, as the regional director for critical care at Northwell Health, which owns 23 hospitals in New York, Dr. Mangala Narasimhan told CNN:”We're saving lives with this, one hundred percent, it's such a simple thing to do, and we've seen remarkable improvement. We can see it for every single patient."

Since seven years, the doctors in New York used this simple procedure according to an article published by French researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome or ARDS, the syndrome is one of the reasons people die from COVID-19, it also kills patients who have influenza, pneumonia and other diseases, this study showed that people who were on ventilators had a lower chance of dying, if they were placed on the prone position, or on their stomachs, and this procedure lowered the mortality risk to half (16 percent in the prone vs. 32 percent in the supine position).

Narasimhan told CNN about the case of a 40 years old patient in critical condition, showing symptoms of ARDS, when turned to prone position, oxygen saturation rate (a measurement of Oxygen in the blood) became 98 percent which is within normal range (95 to 100 percent) from the first measurement 85 percent.

The inconvenience of this procedure that ventilated patients should stay for 16 hours in prone position, and generally, serious cases are put in this position, and need sedation, which means longer time in ICU (the intensive care unit), however, some hospitals, encourage moderate cases to use this technique, they think this allows oxygen to get more easily to the lungs, and because some feel uncomfortable in this position, instead of 16 hours, they advise them to sleep four hours in two sessions.

Source: CNN