Most patients staying in the intensive care unit (ICU) require respiratory support through a ventilator. Since prolonged mechanical ventilation and weaning from the ventilator without criteria or at the inappropriate time can result in many complications, it is required that patients be weaned off the ventilator as soon as possible. This study was conducted to investigate a few standard tools t...

Mechanical ventilation has, since its introduction into clinical practice, undergone a major evolution from controlled ventilation to various modes of assisted ventilation. Neurally adjusted ventilatory assist (NAVA) is the newest development. The implementation of NAVA requires the introduction of a catheter to measure the electrical activity of the diaphragm (EA(di)). NAVA relies, opposite to...

Computer control of mechanical ventilators includes the operator-ventilator interface and the ventilator-patient interface. New ventilation modes represent the evolution of engineering control schemes. The various ventilation control strategies behind the modes have an underlying organization, and understanding that organization improves the clinician's appreciation of the capabilities of vario...

background and purpose: implementing the guidelines to prevent vap has been shown to have a significant effect on reducing the incidence of vap. studies indicate that icu staff have poor knowledge and low implementation rate of the standard preventive measures related to vap. the present study aims to evaluate the knowledge of nurses in the intensive care unit in university hospitals of sari. m...

conclusions pressure support ventilation, but not spontaneous breathing, induces a significant redistribution of ventilation towards the ventral region. the sensitivity of the support trigger appears to influence the distribution of ventilation only during the early phase of inspiration. background in supine position, pressure support ventilation causes a redistribution of ventilation towards t...

Learning Objectives: 1. Define ventilator associated pneumonia and identify its related complications 2. Discuss current preventive measures for ventilator associated pneumonia 3. Describe the various mechanisms of probiotics 4. Evaluate the current literature for the use of probiotics for the prevention of ventilator associated pneumonia

Improving Intensive Care Unit (ICU) outcomes by reducing ventilator associated complications and ventilator days may warrant re-engineering the weaning process.1 Alternative methods which assist clinicians in organizing and implementing accurate weaning processes may shorten the duration of ventilator dependence and positively impact ICU outcomes.2 Knowledge based weaning (KBW) provides an alte...

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is a complication of ventilator care that produces excess, avoidable resource use and treatment costs. Control of VAP is an important aspect of quality of care improvement for long-term care hospitals (LTCHs) since they provide post-acute ventilator care for many Medicare beneficiaries. Data for Medicare patients discharged from LTCHs during CY 2004 who rec...

Potentially harmful effects of positive pressure mechanical ventilation have been recognized since its inception in the 1950s. Since then, the risk factors for and mechanisms of ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI) have been further characterized. Publication of the ARDSnet tidal volume trial in 2000 demonstrated that a ventilator strategy limiting tidal volumes and plateau pressure in patient...