Lecture Summary

Basic and advanced airway management in emergency circumstances are frequently complicated by the occurrence of contamination with regurgitated material or frank bleeding in cases of gastrointestinal bleeding or head and facial trauma. Airway contamination prevents effective and safe oxygenation and ventilation, and furthermore, severely complicates advanced airway management when endotracheal intubation is attempted. The Suction-Assisted Laryngoscopy Airway Decontamination (SALAD) Technique is intended to simplify the care of patients with contaminated airway in both basic and advanced airway management scenarios. SALAD utilizes a large bore rigid suction catheter to simultaneously evacuate the oropharyngeal airway contaminants as well as the hypopharyngeal airway contaminants proactively, to improve the effectiveness of the various airway management procedures. Furthermore, SALAD teaches the caregiver to utilize the rigid suction catheter as a tool to simplify the insertion of basic (oropharyngeal airway) and advanced (laryngoscope and supraglottic airway) airway tools, improving the effectiveness of these techniques in emergency situations.

Target Audience

Emergency Medicine Doctors
Emergency Medicine Nurses
Paramedics
Rural GP's

Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of this activity, you should be able to:

• Understand the purpose of proactive airway suctioning during airway management
• Understand the purpose and technique of utilizing a rigid suction catheter to assist the insertion of an oropharyngeal airway, supraglottic airway and a laryngoscope
• Understand the purpose and technique of placing a suction catheter to the left of a laryngoscope to maintain hypopharngeal decontamination during attempts to intubate a patient (SALAD Park maneuver)

None.