Use methadone to wean sedation?

[Tangmft]

My dad is in icu for 5 weeks now, having hard time weaning off sedation, very agitated and fighting the ventilator, doctor started methadone today. Anyone heard of this?

[Sepsur]

There is an article about it :

“Patients undergoing mechanical ventilation (MV) are frequently administered prolonged and/or high doses of opioids which when removed can cause a withdrawal syndrome and difficulty in weaning from MV. We tested the hypothesis that the introduction of enteral methadone during weaning from sedation and analgesia in critically ill adult patients on MV would decrease the weaning time from MV.”

ccforum.biomedcentral.com/a...

[Tangmft in reply to Sepsur]

Thank you for your info

[Sepsur in reply to Tangmft]

You’re welcome