Ventilation Psychology

The Ventilation Psychology service aims to reduce emotional distress or difficulties arising from ventilatory failure and/or its associated treatments.

Ventilation Psychology offers both direct psychology support and consultation across the patient journey through inpatient support on the Aintree Ventilation Inpatient Centre (VIC) and outpatient clinics available at the Aintree University Hospital to patients who are under the care of an Aintree ventilation consultant.

You can talk to a clinical psychologist, in a confidential setting, about your health problems and their impact, your worries and concerns, your feelings, how you try to manage in your everyday life or about how treatment affects you.

Working with a clinical psychologist may help you with:

• Psychological distress affecting treatment or recovery, such as depression/anxiety
• Psychological distress linked to disability or loss of bodily function
• Post-traumatic stress symptoms connected with health condition or its treatment, including trauma after admission to hospital
• Promoting acceptance and well-being
• Improving engagement with treatment including non-invasive ventilation (NIV)
• Improving engagement with therapies colleagues and rehabilitation.
• Support for family and loved ones.

Clinical psychologists can be useful in helping you develop strategies to manage these problems, as well as generally providing a safe space to talk about the emotional impact that can commonly be experienced and help you to focus on “living well” despite your physical problems.