Conversation: The conversation between human and AI assistant.
[|Human|] I have a family member who is currently in ICU. Last Sunday, she was placed on a ventilator and removed from the vent a couple of days later. Currently, she has been decreased from 60L of high flow oxygen to 40L (they are trying to wean her from the high flow oxygen). While resting, she is tolerating the weaning process well. Her O2 saturation remains in the high 90s to 100 and her blood gases are improving and from my understanding, acceptable. However, if she is turned or physically moved up in the bed, etc., her numbers (mainly her O2 saturation) bottoms out and it takes her anywhere from 30 minutes to as long as an hour to recover and get her numbers back up. The doctors and nurses are telling us that they do not know why this is happening. To me, that is very concerning. Could you offer any insight as to why this is happening? She has been diagnosed with COPD (related to smoking) and was not on any oxygen therapy prior to being admitted into the hospital. They did state that her lungs have suffered extensive damage and when I asked how extensive, they could not tell me because she was unable to perform a PF test. She had an upper respiratory infection, which led to her going to the ER initially.
[|AI|]  1St of all you are having a good medical knowledge, just for your appreciation. & if, she is having COPD, then probably her baseline o2 saturation would be low only, if you have previous documented data, or if u know about it, then it would be possible reason for this. Or she might be in right heart failure due to pulmonary hypertension, which would lead to decrease o2 saturation on lying down position from sitting, if so, diuretics will work.In my opinion, if she has improved from ventilator with satisfactory ABG, she may do well with sufficient bronchodilators, & if spo2 at room air is less than 88, then with home o2 or SOS home BiPAP.