The Waking Nightmare of ICU Delirium for COVID-19 Patients

[markpkessinger]

This is positively terrifying, but I would urge everyone to watch it, just in case someone you know has to be put on a ventilator. According to the video, up to 80% of patients who go on ventilators experience delirium, and it doesn't necessarily end when a patient recovers from the infection. If someone you know is lucky enough to come off a ventilator and recover, you should make sure they get follow-up mental health care!

[yuiyoshida]

1. I have had this before!!

If any of you remember, seems like a life time ago, when I got released from the hospital last November, I talked about waking up and being paranoid that I was in a fake Hospital...how I refused to eat... I also lost a lot of memory which they told me, why that can happen.

If I get this..I will be dead. Totally need to avoid it, or it could ...be horrible.

[PatSeg]

2. I was in the ICU on a ventilator twice

but I didn't remember anything at all, which I was told was a blessing. The one time, the last thing I remembered vaguely was calling 911. Then I woke up three days later in the ICU. For me, it was like I'd lost time as if I'd been dead.

The one thing that did happen both times was I was overcome with waves of unexplained sadness periodically off and on for a couple weeks, often accompanied with uncontrollable sobbing.

Like you, I'm sure catching COVID-19 will kill me.

[zanana1]

3. I was on a ventilator in CCU after bypass surgery.

I was convinced that I was in a Civil War hospital, watching doctors carrying dead people on stretchers. I was a patient in this hallucination. (I read a lot of historical fiction).

[PatSeg]

5. I went through something like that

when I woke up from surgery. In my mind there was an elaborate CIA plot going on and I thought I was in a large basement office. My daughter was there and I was trying to explain it to her. At the time it was very real and vivid, and it was an extension of what was going on in my mind when I was under anesthetic. When I was on the propofol and on the ventilator however, I had no recall whatsoever. (I really like political thrillers!)

[panfluteman]

4. Holy Moly! COVID Delirium, Nightmares and PTSD!

We're surely gonna need nationalized, socialized healthcare after this, just to deal with all the mental health care issues.