DEMAND FLOW SYSTEM - A SYSTEM ALOWING SPONTANEOUS BREATHING DURING HIGH FREQUENCY VENTILATION

摘要

Maintenance of spontaneous breathing in mechanically ventilated patients augments ventilation perfusion matching and cardiopulmonary function, reduces sedative requirement and shortens intensive care stay [1-4]. In larger children and adults spontaneous breathing during high-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) is currently advocated but usually not well tolerated because of patient discomfort. In an earlier study we showed that this is explained by a high level of imposed work of breathing (WOB). In this bench test we assessed the effect of a Demand Flow System on imposed WOB during HFOV.