Evaluation of the Effect of Conversational Hypnosis When Changing Tracheal Cannula in Adult Patients: a Pilot Study

Tracheotomy is requested when upper aero-digestive tracts are obstructed. This obstruction can have a tumour, infectious, inflammatory, traumatic or nervous origin. Most tracheotomy surgeries are performed for tumour-induced obstruction. Tracheotomy allows the setting of a respiratory flux thanks to a cannula and excludes the upper airways. The cannula is washed every day from once to several times depending on the patient's secretions production and it is usually replaced every week. The second replacement takes place about 10 days after surgery. Patient education takes place at every replacement in order to empower him/her and in consequence to increase living comfort. This empowerment is achieved at the 4th or 5th replacement, at best. Because of the risks and complications related to tracheotomy and because of the concerned vital function, the cannula replacement leads to anxiety especially during the first replacements. Usual patient's anxiety management consists in reassuring the patient during the replacement. In other situations, patients' anxiety management would be drugs, however due to sedative and anxiolytic drugs' adverse events and to the need to maintain optimal breathing, they are not used in first intention. Our choice is to use conversational hypnosis during cannula replacement as it has already demonstrated interesting effects in pain and anxiety. Conversational hypnosis does not present an induction phase like in so-called hypnosis, it aims at leading the patient to perceive his/her world differently with only a slight consciousness alteration.