Ventilator Associated Pneumonia

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Ventilator-associated pneumonia Nosocomial pneumonia, also known as hospital acquired pneumonia is an infection in the lungs that occurs during a hospital stay. Pneumonia is a very common illness. It is caused by different germs, and the infection can range in seriousness from mild to life-threatening. Hospital acquired pneumonia tends to be more serious than other lung infections because patients at the hospital are often more sick and unable to fight off bacteria, and also the types of bacteria present in a hospital are often more dangerous than those encountered in the community. This type of pneumonia occurs more often in patients who are using mechanical ventilation to help them breathe. When pneumonia occurs in a patient who is on a ventilator, it is known as ventilator- associated pneumonia (VAP). VAP has a greater occurrence in patients on mechanical ventilation for 48 hours or longer. This paper presents a review on the effect of oral cares in decreasing the rates of pneumonia in patients that are mechanically ventilated (article 3). In this paper the subject being looked at are patients that are mechanically ventilated. The intervention is performing oral care and hygiene whether it is mechanical or pharmacological intervention. The action of actually performing these and the frequency in which they are performed is what is being compared to no oral cares. The outcome is to decrease the rates for developing VAP (article 5,1,2,3, and 4). VAP is a major threat to patients receiving mechanical ventilation in hospitals and prevention and control of VAP remains a primary concern. The objective is to determine the effect of implementing a comprehensive oral and dental care system and protocol on the rate of VAP (Article 2). The studies showed similar findings in the incidence of VAP in the medical setting. VAP incidence in patients intubated less than 72

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