Advanced airway management

Advanced airway management is the subset of airway management that involves high skill and invasiveness. It comprises various medical procedures performed to create an open airway (a path between a patient’s lungs and the outside world).

This is accomplished by clearing or preventing obstructions of airways, often referred to as choking, cause by the tongue, the airways them self, foreign bodies or materials from the body it self, such as blood or aspiration.

Unlike basic airway management such as head-tilt or jaw-thrust maneuver, advanced airway management relies on the use of medical equipment and special training. Invasive airway management can be performed "blind" or with visualization of the glottis e.g. by the use of a laryngoscope.

In roughly increasing order of invasiveness are the use of supraglottic devices such as oropharyngeal, nasopharyngeal and laryngeal mask airways; followed by infraglottic techniques such as tracheal intubation and finally surgical methods.

Advanced airway management is a primary consideration in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, anaesthesia, emergency medicine and intensive care medicine.

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