How To Treat Covid In Home Isolation | FYI

[Music] hello and welcome you're watching fyi i'm sonal merodra kapoor now by the r we are getting reports of how country is running out of hospital beds running out of oxygen how there's simply no way the medical infrastructure can take any further load and more and more people now advised to take care and home care their covet so how should you be tackling covid at home what is the best way for that home care for covid this is what we'll explain to you in this explainer first up who can be isolated at home that's very important to remember well two kind of people a if you're asymptomatic basically meaning you have very mild illness and your fever and your cough etc symptoms basically are as follows you have a sore throat you have muscle pain you can get nausea diarrhea loss of taste and smell and more and more with the new variants around now shortness of breath in fact if you don't have shortness of breath that is when you are called a mild patient and that's when you can actually home isolate the other kind of people who can isolate at home and care for coved at home are patients with moderate illnesses for example if you have evidence of lower respiratory disease during your imaging this basically ct scan etc and your saturation level of oxygen is above 94 so do remember if you have shortness of breath if your ct scan is showing increased patching in your lungs that is the time you need to go to the hospital apart from that you can't treat it at home if you do it wisely now for treating kovid at home there is some equipment that you must always have two essentials over there a thermometer and a pulse oxymeter pulse oximeter is all of us are aware of it right now you can order it online or just get it from a nearest chemist both these should be reported maintain a chart and take it at least twice every day but what are some of the essentials over here what are the things that you must do if you're treating kovid at home first up drink lots of fluids constantly wash your hands with soap and water triple layer mask and discard that every eight hours after disinfection disinfect your frequently touched surfaces as well and avoid any daytime naps etc as it can lead to some sleeplessness at night and keep your doctor's number at hand keep updating that chart i told you about keep sending it to them twice a day also something that has turned out to be a huge help in kovid recovery is drinking lots of water but also doing steam inhalation and warm water gargles as well now that you understand what are the things that you must do upon with the medication that your doctor gives you some of the red flags what are the things that you need to keep in mind and when the following symptoms come you must report your doctor and perhaps that's the time you need hospitalization first up dip in oxygen level if your oxymeter says it's below 92 percent or so if you have slurred speech if you have weakness in your limbs something that has gone up exponentially compared to the past few days if you have difficulty in breathing if you have pain or pressure in your chest and if you see discoloration in your lips face sometimes in your nails and your fingers as well every time that happens let your doctor know let him decide what is to be done and when this is a most you know commonly asked question to us self efficient but leaving living with other people how do you do that well for that the best thing to do is have separate rooms but also have separate bathrooms and in the room that you are living in there should be enough ventilation do not share vessels even linen and use keep all these items segregated for the core with positive patient do not let that mix up with other people in the house and a lot one person in the family who is going to be the caregiver who will always have a double mask on or an n95 and that person whenever catering to them giving them food etc should maintain at least one meter of distance so this is what are some of the tips that you can keep in mind if you're treating kovid at home all right but apart from that there are lots of things that you can do we talked about double masking we'll dip into that as well towards the end of the program we'll give you a good demo on how to double mask and what mask to use even if you're treating covet patients at home but when i flagged off this issue lots of questions came up online and our guests now will be taking some of those questions we have dr rajeev joining us he's a vice chairman research cell ima kerala kerala state which has managed to really uh you know turn around the covet story managed to isolate manage to treat people at home so we'll take some good learnings from him we've got dr praveen he is a chairman and the interventional cardiology and structural heart disease at medanta medici in gurugram and we've got dr nimrod shah he's joining us from the reliance hospital in mumbai let me take up the first viewer question really this was sent to us by wakar mehndi if you can have that question on air please he asks uh how do you ascertain the severity of kovid 19 for it to be able to be treated at home i think this is a very important basic question more and more doctors right now are saying not everybody needs to be in the hospital but who needs to be at home how do you qualify that dr rajeev if you could answer that for us please yes the severity of covet 19 is a is a significant topic here and remember that these patients are being seen and react over the phone or by a video call so um we just have to go with basic demography first someone who's older will be at greater risk to have severe disease and if someone is younger they're less likely to have severe disease so that will be the biggest uh differentiating factor between these two and then people who are triaging this patient will have experience having talked with other patients in the same format so obviously if it's a new person who is doing the triage he'll be he or she will be assisted by someone of experience so uh by the patient's profile itself the number of commodities the patient has in other words how many other kind of illnesses the patient has how does the patient look uh so that is a when you eyeball the patient what do the patient look like are they in distress so those are some of the basic things that one can do and then there are what's called the vital signs the vital signs are as you know they're they're the pulse the oxygen saturation and the blood pressure and also the temperature so these are some of the parameters that the people who are doing the tele monitoring and can use to assess the severity okay and as over a period of time they do see the patient's progress and they have a baseline assessment of the patient and if there's a significant change in baseline the people who run that helpline for example in question we have a very large helpline we've gone got over lacks of course over the years over the over the past one year serviced over 50 000 patients so right these people have a dedicated team of personnel who are who are a large group of people mostly youngsters and many of them are not even doctors so they are all people who are who are there to help out the community and their people from the government sector and the public sector and hold them together okay okay let's take the next question now this has come to us from nitin gupta he says i have been tested positive yesterday i have isolated myself in my room what do i need to do i have mild chest pain while coughing little pain in my eyes and there is no fever kindly recommend what to do dr nimit can you take that please yeah so this is not very uncommon uh we get a lot of calls regarding that so what i would advise here is well very important as you rightly said in fact you had already covered even before we start all these questions but just to recap it it's very important that you got get in touch with the doctor so you should have a definite or for like a friend doctor who could guide you who can review every morning and evening your symptoms so that is very important so can i intervene over there i think effectively what he's asking is that we often tend to misread chest pain right the minute and a lot of patients confuse chest pain to anxiety or to say breathlessness as well so if you are somebody who's facing a mild chest pain could you just explain to our viewers how exactly to measure that and how to understand the severity of the problem and then how to communicate it sure so again as i said you know it's very important that you contact your doctor because chest pain could be of various types the history is very important is this patient known to have any heart problem okay or lung problem beforehand and then you have to distinguish because if this patient i'm a cardiologist if this patient does have angina and we know most money forbid patients are coming with heart problem as well and we are missing that because we are ignoring this at a bit covered and patient die because of heart problems so it's very important to see is this pain different from your heart or this is new with cough forgetting chest pain is because of the inflammation within the heart muscle sometimes it's a muscular pain as well so they have to see very important is it giving you breathlessness is your saturation levels getting low that is very important and if you take simple dolo or paracetamol is the pain going off so those are very important if there's muscular pain and it is only coming off cuff and your saturation levels are good patient is not breathless i wouldn't be very concerned but with a cuff with chest pain if he's getting breathless his saturations are getting low and he's feeling tightness then he should rush to the hospital okay all right that's good to know uh next question this is from anam ahmad she asks uh how to maintain oxygen level at home i think and dr praveen if you can answer that really i think what she's essentially asking is how if there are any tips somebody who's already got kovade is likely you don't know how it'll turn out to be in the couple of days how does is there any aids any some tips you can share that people can practice at home to ensure that the lung is functioning properly okay so i think this is a very good question and because most of the people are actually very bothered and very concerned that as soon as they get a single spike of fever or they get a single cough they think that they have to be admitted they have to be given rammed a silver and all those kind of injections which is not true you already started with that and i first of all i want to give a message to everybody that even if it is covered do not get panicked because most of the disease is mild or at the most moderate and all of this can be treated just by medications and more than 50 can be treated at home can be treated well at home right so that's the that's the reason why we're doing this entire program dedicated to home care really yes so if you could answer specifically to this question when she's trying to understand how to maintain a good lung function and how to maintain oxygen levels should or people should obviously be avoiding any kind of exercise i'm sure so what i recommend is that as soon as one suspects or one is diagnosed to have proved at home they should keep doing deep breathing exercises take steam and do normal activity at home do not worry too much about it unless until you have those symptoms and there is no need to panic or arrange oxygen at home also because many times people are thinking that arranging a cylinder of oxygen is very important that's not true please do not try to do that so can i ask you this again i'm just intervening because this oxygen concentrator going really scarce outside is a big issue if you could specifically tell us at what stage in your covet care do you need an oxygen concentrator because now doctors are saying don't come to us we don't have beds take an oxygen concentrate and be at home but who needs it yeah so those patients who are having severe respiratory symptoms with oxygen levels the pulse oximeter saturations going below 90 percent or below 80 percent in those cases only oxygen is required above 90 there is no need to take oxygen so please do not panic or you know kind of try to take extra oxygen it is not going to help anybody at all okay let me take the next question now also very pertinent something that i get asked very frequently from saurabh he says when does one need to go for a ct scan dr ajif if you could answer that please yes a ct scan is a test that looks at the in this case we are looking at the lungs here uh it can see things that a chest x-ray cannot see so that is where the question comes from so if you have a patient who is uh having a symptom that is suggesting of lung disease or lung involvement we know that some people with covet 19 regardless of their age can get a bit of lung involvement early on and to correctly separate these people from those without lung involvement in certain instances a cd scan is needed but i can tell you among all the covet 19 patients the number of people who need a ct scan can you give us an example dr rajiv say somebody's contracted kovid they have fever and they're more they're checking that keeping it under check it's a fifth day or sixth day when fee was getting under control but only after medication would you say that after a week of proper medication if the fever is still not under check then people should go for a ct scan this depends on the treating team there is a team of people who is looking after the patient who are already as i mentioned familiar with the patient's baseline and the baseline as i mentioned is extremely important because each patient has a different baseline so when the team or if the team suspects that this patient is having a clinical deterioration that they can detect which they can't explain by other means so i'll explain what the commonest reason for deterioration is anxiety as as the doctors here have already said the commonest reason for um for being short of breath is anxiety because you know people are afraid of covet and anyone would be afraid sitting at home so the first thing to determine is to calm the patient down to see if it's a genuine case of shortness of breath and if it's a genuine case of shortness essentially let your doctor decide don't do it don't pre-decide don't pre-decide let your doctor take that call whether or not you need a ct scan dr shah quickly wanted to intervene yeah can i on that for now yes please go ahead sir oh hecha city there's a lot of misconception then it's probably misused as well so i see a lot of patients specially treated by family physician first investigation done is hrct and they are avoiding doing with rt pcr because they think if the kuvit rt pcr the government would be noticed notified and they get all the restrictions so we should curb previously the use of hrcd and this fever is not the criteria of doing an hrct is only when you have an infectable cuff your cuff is not getting better and you start having breathlessness that is when you have to an hr important point there okay and other blood markers like if your crp is going very high your d diamonds are going high then it where you get for mild symptoms slight fever your blood markers are good you haven't developed your stuff your breathing is fine you don't need atracity at all so let me just translate that for my viewer who does not understand d dimer etc it is essentially a blood test which is a good sort of tell to your doctor about the amount of inflammation in your body and that gives them a good idea about whether or not you're on the path of recovery or whether you're deteriorating because of covet please correct me if i'm wrong over there in my analysis okay so that is what a blood test is what you can get done before you rush in for a ct scan there's no reason that you should all be lining up uh you know outside your radiologist and getting a ct scan let's take the next question now this is from hindu dubai uh she asks what vitamins should a covet infected person consume uh when to begin taking them and for how long and if i can just add a bit of my own question to this people in the house who don't have covet but are staying in the same house with the person infected isolated should they start on those vitamins as well not knowing if at all it's going to spread especially with the new variants when it's spreading in the entire family yeah to go if uh if if i can ask dr praveen to answer that please okay okay uh so this is a very you know interesting and very important question because many many people are consuming far too many vitamins then are really required so what is happening is that many patients who are at home and many people who are at home and who are kind of trying to prevent themselves from getting coveted they are trying too much of vitamins it is not really necessary at all vitamin c people can take as a general measure for prevention of any viral illness and also they can take vitamin d if because many many people are deficient and they are generally deficient yeah so it is reasonable to take that but certainly i must tell you that there are no studies which have shown that if you consume a big dose of vitamins you will really prevent having infections dr shah quickly wanted to come in i saw him shaking his head please go ahead i completely agree with dr praveen as well because there's a lot of and your question like you know where other members of the family need like there's no evidence but you know like everyone would take it even if you ask me if the patient asked me i said okay fine go ahead go and take vitamin c a smaller dose go take vitamin u but there's no evidence whether that does any good or bad it doesn't do much harm but there's no harm in taking it probably at least it might act as a placebo pleasing just it's like a would relieve the anxiety there is no evidence that vitamins have anything to do with covet 19 let me get that absolutely clear right now there are there are certain instances when a patient can be deficient in a vitamin that has nothing to do with covid19 and if such a patient was found to be deficient definitely yes otherwise all that vitamins do is to make expensive urine all right thank you all three of you for joining us with that very important advice uh we understood perhaps that this is the time when everybody's very anxious so the quick takeaway over here is do not rush to the hospital just because you've tested positive do watch out for symptoms don't wait for result as that is key now more and more with variants coming in and do take the advice of your doctor before you rush in for a ct scan or anything else follow their advice stay calm we'll perhaps get out of all of this quite strong thank you all for joining us on the other side of the break we tell you some good tips on how to mask up and especially double masking so important right now how to do it on the other side welcome back now we tell you the all-important issue of double masking so essentially there are three kinds of masks that you really get out in the market there is an n95 let's start with this one when an n95 is essentially is something that you don't need anything on top of this is a good foolproof way of protecting yourself but remember while purchasing an n95 do not buy the one which has a valve in it because that can retain moisture the best way to wear it put it on clip it in and blow if you see air coming out of any other side that means you're not wearing it right it needs to block in this is is good to keep you safe and your surroundings at a near dear one safe as well but in case you don't have an n95 what is to be done then well pick up a surgical mask like this put it on but remember surgical mask alone is not enough because you see you see over here how there is there are gaps all this time so what you need to do is pick this up turn this around and then wear it again you will see how this just twisting it will grip in properly but like i said this is not enough you'll have to top it up with a cloth mask wear this on top and then do the blow test again once it fits in for me the test is if my specs are not fogging that means my mask is pretty much in place i hope this helps with the new variants all around which are spreading like wildfire it's even more important that you double mask at this time stay safe mask up

Channel: NDTV

Views: 262,064

Keywords: NDTV 24x7, Coronavirus, Covid Cases In India, Covid Crisis In India, India's Triple Mutation, COVID-19 infections, tv show, sonal mehrotra kapoor, fyi show, Covid Vaccine, Oxford coronavirus vaccine, Covid-19, Coronavirus Vaccine, Covishield Vaccine, Coronavirus India, Covid-19 Cases, Coronavirus India Cases, india coronavirus, covid news, sputnik vaccine, bharat biotech, Coronavirus Updates, How To Treat Covid, How To Treat Covid In Home Isolation, Covid care at home

Id: G67xpID4lFw

Length: 21min 55sec (1315 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021