EP 212: A Patient’s Perspective of Delirium With Amelie Susanne

What is a patient’s perspective of delirium? An induced coma is also known as MIC or medically induced coma, barbiturate-induced coma, or drug-induced coma.

It is also called as temporary coma or a deep state of consciousness controlled by an anesthetic drug.

Often, barbiturates like pentobarbital or thiopental are used to help patients. It can also be intravenous anesthetic drugs like midazolam or propofol, but what happens when a patient goes through an induced coma and wakes up from it?

Can a patient recall any memory while they are in a coma? This episode will talk about a patient’s perspective of delirium and many more. 

In this episode, we would like to introduce you to Amelie Susanne Roth. Susanne is a coma survivor. After an initial bacteria infection, Susanne had to be placed into an induced coma that lasted 16 days.

We talk about her time in the ICU and her experience of being in a coma and suffering from it. In this episode, we flip the script and learn firsthand about the patient’s experience.  

Questions for Our Guest

The questions below are some we’d like to tackle. We often go off-topic, so we don’t expect to hit them all. If you have any ideas, please let us know.

Looking forward to our conversation!

These are the questions you had in Calendly. We’ll go off our questions, and wherever else our conversation goes.

1. Please give us a little background about yourself.
2. How did you end up in the hospital? And can you go a little in-depth into what happened?

• • • Do you know what kind of infection it was? Where it came from?

3. Can you put us through the course of your hospital experience? Before this, coming from the day you came in?

• • • What you heard, what were you told, and how did you feel?

4. You going into a coma and being intubated; was this something you expected? 

5. When you were intubated and unresponsive, what was happening? 

• • • Do you remember any of it? 
    • How did it feel?
    • Were you able to hear anything?
    • Was it just like a dream state?

6. When you came out of the coma, were you mentally back to normal?

• • • Were you aware of the whole extubation process? For example, when nurses say, can you open your eyes, squeeze my hand, weaning process?
    • Did you suffer from any delirium or confusion?
    • How did you feel during everything that was going on?

7. Where do you think healthcare providers can improve?

• • • Do you think the healthcare system failed you?
    • How did it feel communicating with healthcare professionals? And did you feel like you were given enough information?

8. What was the process after you regained consciousness?

• • • Did it take you a long time to bounce back? PT/OT? What does PT/OT mean?

9. How has life changed for you?

• • • Additionally, did you have any big realizations? Like a change in mentality or outlook? 

10. What made you decide to write a book?

Ending Questions

Before we end the show, we have one last question we like to ask all our guests.

If you had the opportunity to have a Cup of coffee with anybody one last time, who would it be and why? 

Links: 

www.ameliesusanneroth.com
https://a.co/d/efqtaHD

Do you want to learn more about a patient’s perspective of delirium? Watch the full episode here 👇👇

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Introduction
01:32 About Amelie Susane Roth
02:38 How it all started
07:25 Experiences of Being Under Sedation and in a Coma
13:40 How does it feel to be in delirium or a coma?
15:57 A better understanding of why a patient gets agitated
18:14 The post-coma experience
25:03 Medicine Failing Patients and the Need for a Different Approach
27:50 Coping with Traumatic Experiences After a Coma
35:00 Life’s outlook after coma
40:48 Amelie’s life prior to becoming a patient
44:27 The Life Lessons While Traveling The World
47:18 Wrapping up the show