Disinfection of mechanical ventilators.

A comparison of turbine-driven mechanical ventilators and conventional ventilators

Turbine-driven mechanical ventilators have some important advantages over conventional ventilators. The most obvious of these is independence of compressed air supply during patient transport, but higher NIV performance due to higher peak flow is also often mentioned. However, there is still a widespread belief that conventional ventilators using compressed air supplies outperform turbine-drive...

Update on modalities of mechanical ventilators.

Recent advances in ventilator technology have often not been confirmed by randomised trials and instead serious shortcomings have been highlighted. Ventilation modes should only be introduced into routine clinical practice when proved efficacious in appropriately designed studies and no adverse outcomes identified by long term follow up.

Inaccuracy of tidal volume delivered by home mechanical ventilators.

Ideally, the inspired (tidal) volume (V(T)) provided by a volume-controlled ventilation device should not change when the pressure imposed on the ventilator varies. A bench study evaluation of V(T) versus pressure was performed on 10 commercially available devices. The difference between the desired V(T) and the observed V(T) reached 100 mL for some devices when inspiratory resistance was at it...

The classification and clinical application of mechanical ventilators.

Evaluation of the user-friendliness of 11 home mechanical ventilators.

The home ventilator market has grown in size and complexity. The aim of this study was to determine if common home ventilators are user-friendly for trained intensive care unit (ICU) physicians. Eleven ventilator models were tested by 13 ICU physicians without practical experience in home mechanical ventilation. Six tests were defined (start-up, unlocking, mode and setting recognition, mode cha...