Galway Bay FM Newsroom - A global research project sponsored by NUI Galway has found that critically-ill Covid-19 patients are less likely to die or to require invasive ventilation if lying prone on their stomachs while receiving oxygen.
The impact of the technique, known as awake prone positioning, was assessed in hospitals in six countries on more than 1,000 Coronavirus patients requiring advanced breathing support.
The findings are published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
The study was the first clinical trial of its kind into the practice of awake prone positioning and ran from April 2020 to January 2021 and showed that treating patients in this position, while they received high flow nasal cannula oxygen, reduced death and the need for invasive mechanical ventilation.
Speaking to Galway Bay FM News, Dr Bairbre McNicholas, Honorary Senior Lecturer at NUI Galway and Intensive Care Consultant at University Hospital Galway said the trials found that patients lying on their stomachs allowed better expansion of the lungs making oxygen treatment more effective:
