Benefits And Complications Of A Mechanical Ventilator

ICU patients suffer from a broad range of pathologies, requiring MV, sedation and use of multiples devices, which do not allow patients to protect their airway (Augustyn. 2007; Kollef. 2004).

Another important intervention was to maintain the head of the bed at 30-45 degrees and position L.M.’s left lung into a dependent position to improve ventilation and perfusion. L.M.’s O2 was decreased to 63 and her CO2 was increased to 50. According to the IHI, it is recommended to elevate the bed to 30- 45 degrees to improve ventilation. Patients that lay in the supine position have lower spontaneous tidal volumes on pressure support ventilation compared to those laying at more of an angle (Institute for Healthcare Improvement, 2012). In regards to positioning, when the least damaged portion of the lung is placed in a dependent position it receives preferential blood flow. This redistribution of blood flow helps match ventilation and perfusion, therefore, improving gas exchange (Lough, Stacy & Urden, 2010). Implementing these interventions combined with respiratory therapy, significantly improved the blood gas values for oxygen and carbon dioxide levels.

Adequate qualified medical staff must be present in all critical care areas caring for mechanically ventilated

Due to the mechanical ventilator, it is able to assist in oxygen perfusion to all of her tissue. Thus, the lungs will be able to expand appropriately.

BiPAP is a form of noninvasive mechanical ventilation used on patients that have acute respiratory failure. Many of these patients go on noninvasive ventilation due to COPD exacerbations that are infectious, with congestive heart failure, and ventilator parameters based on their clinical assessment and changes in arterial blood gases. Two different studies were conducted on COPD patients, using a BiPAP machine to improve exacerbations and their activities of daily living. There are many positive outcomes for using these noninvasive ventilators however when used incorrectly, negative outcomes or not changes at all are always possible.

The authors begin their initiation of the research article by stating their reason attention is needed to study the rate of accidental decannulation (AD). Due to the increment in the number of patients receiving protracted mechanical ventilation through artificial airway, much attention is needed to focus on how to reduce the morbidity and mortality rate of accidental decannulation. Not much recognition is given to the complications of AD compared to accidental extubation following translaryngeal intubation (White et al., 2012). According to the authors, the research was triggered by two sentinel events, hence a research for the identification of the causes of AD in LTACH and implementation of strategies to curb the situation.

Even though the consequence of saline instillation on a ventilator patient in the acute care setting is pneumonia or the patient may become hemodynamically unstable, this practice remain contentious, the practice of this procedure will also decrease the oxygenation. (Ayhan, et al., 2015),

38. American Journal of Respiratory care and critical care Medicine, Volume 175, issue 7, pages 698 – 704

Respiratory therapists have one of the most exciting and gratifying careers within the medical field. Unfortunately as with any other job or career, it doesn’t come without having challenging times. Respiratory therapists work along-side physicians and are highly trained to treat patients with any sort of lung concern or breathing complications. This job requires hands on care, and deals with life and death daily. One specific scope of this field involves caring for patients (of all ages) attached to mechanical ventilation. It is the respiratory therapists’ responsibility to remove assistive ventilation to patients with written order from the doctor; which ultimately results in death of the patient (Keene, Samples, Masini, Byington).

Sometimes when a patient is on the more common form of mechanical ventilation for an extended time or if the patient has undergone respiratory failure, their respiratory muscles have a tendency to become weak. With the use of this biphasic cuirass ventilation method they can have the opportunity to build and strengthen those muscles which, in return, can allow them to be weaned from the ventilator

ation that I will be discussing is Airway Pressure Release Ventilation (APRV). I have not had an opportunity to use this mode, so I thought I would research it for this assignment. “The degree of ventilator support with APRV is determined by the duration of the two CPAP levels and the mechanically delivered tidal volume. Depends mainly on respiratory compliance and the difference between the CPAP levels. By design, changes in ventilatory demand do not alter the level of mechanical support during APRV. When spontaneous breathing is absent, APRV is not different from conventional pressure-controlled, time-cycled mechanical ventilation”( Putensen, C. )APRV is a form of improved pressure ventilation allowing unrestricted spontaneous breath at an

From investigation in health practices, ventilator associated pneumonia caught my attention. “Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAP) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in intensive care units. Most episodes of VAP are thought to develop from the aspiration of oropharyngeal secretions containing potentially pathogenic organisms. Aspiration of gastric secretions may also contribute, though likely a lesser degree. Tracheal intubation interrupts the body’s anatomic and physiologic defenses against aspiration, making mechanical ventilation a major risk for Ventilator Associated Pneumonia. Semi-recumbent positioning of mechanically ventilated patients may help reduce the incidence of gastroesophageal reflux and lead to a decreased incidence of VAP. The one randomized trial to date of semi- recumbent positioning shows it to be an effective method of reducing VAP. Immobility in critically ill patients leads to atelectasis and decreased clearance of bronchopulmonary secretions. The accumulation of contaminated oropharyngeal secretions above the endotracheal tube cuff may contribute to the risk of aspiration. Removing these

The nature of the study recommended in the paper was to assess the effects of protocolized weaning from mechanical ventilation on the total duration of mechanical ventilation for critically ill adults and ascertain differences between protocolized and non-protocolized weaning in terms of adverse events, mortality, quality of life, weaning duration, intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital length of stay (LOS) and explore the variation in outcomes by the type of ICU, type of protocol and approach to delivering the protocol.

For the past 50 years acute respiratory distress syndrome or better known as ARDS, has been an issue in hospital intensive care units all around the world. The first “documented published scientific description dates back to 1821 when Laennec described the gross pathology of the heart and lungs and described idiopathic anasarca of the lungs; pulmonary edema without heart failure in a treatise on diseases of the chest.”1 Cardiac and non-cardiac issues were not taken into consideration as part of the cause at that time. The first definition dates back to Ashbaugh and colleagues in 1967.2 Though modern medicine has been around for hundreds of years, it wasn’t until hospitals designed intensive care units and began using mechanical ventilation

Effect of a Protective-Ventilation Strategy on Mortality in the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (Amato et al.,). The topic of the article is the use of protective lung strategies and the effects they have on mortality rates for patients with Acute