Respiratory therapist here…your body will continue to breathe as normal and you don’t have to consciously worry about breathing through an opening in your neck. A tracheostomy is placed in order to protect a patient’s airway due to facial/neck trauma, chronic and terminal diseases, or TBI. The most common reason we put in a trach is if the patient requires long term support from the ventilator to breathe. Think of things like ALS, paralysis, certain cancers, etc.
The trach allows us to maintain the airway by suctioning and keeping the airway clear/patent. It sounds a lot scarier than it is. I often explain to patients and families how you can eat and speak with a trach and in many cases we are able to remove the trach all together when/if the patient reaches that point. It just all depends on the case.
Hope this helps!
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