Mechanical ventilators used in intensive care units are sophisticated devices. The guiding principle in their design is the provision of optimal lung ventilation. They incorporate precise but sizeable pneumatic components intended to utilize piped gases and mains electricity. However, when transporting patients receiving ventilatory support, these devices are rarely suitable because of their si...

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...

The use of ventilatory assistance can be traced back to biblical times. However, mechanical ventilators, in the form of negative-pressure ventilation, first appeared in the early 1800s. Positive-pressure devices started to become available around 1900 and today's typical intensive care unit (ICU) ventilator did not begin to be developed until the 1940s. From the original 1940s ventilators until...

BACKGROUND Portable ventilators are increasingly utilized in the intra- and inter-hospital transport of patients. We evaluated 4 portable ventilators, Impact EMV, CareFusion LTV 1200, Newport HT70, and Hamilton T1, in terms of triggering, delivered tidal volume (V(T)) accuracy, battery duration, delivered F(IO(2)) accuracy, and gas consumption. METHODS Triggering was tested using a microproce...

BACKGROUND New home ventilators are able to provide clinicians data of interest through built-in software. Monitoring of tidal volume (VT) is a key point in the assessment of the efficacy of home mechanical ventilation. OBJECTIVE To assess the reliability of the VT provided by 5 ventilators in a bench test. METHODS Five commercial ventilators from 4 different manufacturers were tested in pr...