HELIOX EXPLAINED (He + O2) | RESPIRATORY THERAPY TMC TIPS

What's up guys? My name is Austin Marks. Welcome back to my YouTube channel. I am currently a

respiratory

therapist and have been a

respiratory

therapist for about two years. In today's video I will talk about

heliox

. I'm sorry. So what is

heliox

? So heliox is a mixture of helium and oxygen. So why do we use this? Helium is one of the densest gases within the periodic table, besides hydrogen, which hydrogen is very combustible, we don't want to use it and we don't want to put that in the body because it just makes us more acidic, so helium is an odorless, tasteless gas that isn't actually absorbed by the body, that's why we use helium and mix it with oxygen, so like I said, it's denser. so it can move through the airway much more easily and much more smoothly, which is why we normally use this when there is some type of obstruction or if a patient is having some type of asthma attack, so the airway They are tight and don't allow much airflow to pass through.

They, therefore, we use heliox um, which allows air to pass through the obstruction, so if a child may have swallowed a lego or something, it allows air to pass into the lungs or, with the attack In asthma, the airways become blocked. and maybe the bronchodilators aren't working the steroids aren't working we're going to go ahead and use the heliox we can get to the alveoli and create that gas exchange so like I said some of the most common uses for this include blockages , asthma attacks or asthma in general croup rsv copd bronchiolitis anything that could be blocking the airways or just causing the airways to close is pretty much what I said, so I talked about when we would use it, how we use it, so there are a few different ways that we can we can use heliox we can use it through the vent we can use it with a nano respirator mask we can administer it with medications like do it like a nebulizer um it all depends on what the situation is and when we want to use it what um when When using heliocs, you also have to take into account the ratio you are using, so what I mean by this is that I can give 20 oxygen and 80 helium, which is technically 21 oxygen and 79 helium, or I can give 30 oxygen and 70 helium or even 60 helium and 40 oxygen, so honestly it all depends on how much oxygen the patient needs, for example if a toddler just swallowed a lego and they don't really need that excess oxygen, but they do need oxygen to get to the xavioli, we can just use the ratio 21 79 just to go ahead and lower the air until we can officially go ahead and get that lego out.

If we have an asthma patient who is having a fairly severe attack and needs some additional oxygen, we can go ahead and use. uh the 70 30. Honestly, it all depends and the more oxygen you use compared to helium, that gas moves forward and becomes a little bit heavier, a little bit denser and therefore doesn't enter the airways as smoothly. as if it were you. you're using more helium, so all you have to do is look at your patient and say, what's the best ratio for my patient? Sometimes we may have to go ahead and use the 20 80 ratio because we want to use the nebulizer and nothing like that. the air or the medication can get to the alveoli or the lower airways so we use the nebulizer and the medication with heliox to go ahead and get to the airways so you want to know these different ratios like I said you have 80 20 70 30 and 60 40.

So I have different conversion factors for these different ratios, so for example, if I'm using 80 20, I want to go ahead and use the 1.8 conversion factor, so if I give to my patient 10 liters, I actually want to give him 18 liters on the flow meter, this is because the gas is denser, it is lighter, therefore, it does not receive as much flow. That little ball is made for oxygen, it is made for the density of oxygen, so it shoots. everything a little bit, so if I'm using 70 30 I need to go ahead and use the 1.6 conversion factor and then if I'm using 60 40 I need to use the 1.4 conversion factor, so I put these ratios together with their conversion factors. next to me here so if you need to pause the video write them down just remember them because I had a question on my tmc or on my forums asking me about this so this is pretty important information that you guys need to know.

Typically, if you're doing this in a clinical setting, on every device they have a little sheet that says, "Okay, if you're giving this amount of oxygen, this ratio is what the flow meter should set to." Everything is self-explanatory. So what are the most common places you will see helioxy being used? It will be in the emergency room or the ICU. Honestly, it all depends on the situation. Like I said, if a patient comes in with asthma and is having trouble breathing, you may want to put heliox right away if none of the bronchodilators or steroids aren't working as well.

Typically helium is a brown tank and heliox is a brown and green tank so be sure to keep an eye out for that. That was also another question on my forums. um I was asking about tanks and colors so if you have any other questions about heliocs just leave the comments and I'll get back to you. I hope you enjoyed this video and see it in the next one.