MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) – Most people who get diagnosed with COVID-19 will be able to recover at home. But what is it like for those that end up in the hospital?
Montgomery-area pulmonologist Dr. William Saliski said treatment for COVID-19 in the United States, and across the world, is anecdotal. He says they rely on constant information from credible sources like the American Thoracic Society and the American College of Chest Physicians for continuous treatment information.
“Anyone that we feel is credible we read,” said Saliski. “Then we try to make our own decisions based on what they say. However, there is a huge amount of information that comes across daily that changes. So, we really have to make our own decisions locally.”
Without a specific treatment or vaccine existent for COVID-19, doctors and nurses are doing everything they can to help patients heal.
Saliski said this is how he is treating his COVID-19 patients. Some of his partners might do things differently.
Oxygen therapy and Prone Positioning
“Patients that are not critically ill, that are in a regular room, who have low-grade COVID pneumonitis, they are coughing and somewhat short of breath. Of course, oxygen therapy is paramount,” Saliski said.
There are various forms of oxygenation being used.
“If someone does go into Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome, then we have parameters that we follow for Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome on how we ventilate patients,” Saliski said.
He said they try to refrain from using a BiPAP machine because that machine aerosolizes the virus in rooms and it puts healthcare workers at risk.
Along with oxygen therapy, a process called “prone positioning” is also used. Prone positioning involves frequently turning a patient over on their stomach to increase airflow to different areas of a patient’s lungs, hopefully preventing the need for ventilation.
“It is one of the bedrock treatments for this disease,” Saliski said. “What happens is by proning somebody, you flip them over on their stomach, this disease process then, it’s called ‘atelectasis’ or collapse of the lung, then will settle out from one side of the lung to the other side and as it does that your oxygenation improves.”
He said proning is used on patients that are intubated, on a mec