Simple low-cost construction and calibration of accurate pneumotachographs for monitoring mechanical ventilation in low-resource settings.

ABSTRACT: Assessing tidal volume during mechanical ventilation is critical to improving gas exchange while avoiding ventilator-induced lung injury. Conventional flow and volume measurements are usually carried out by built-in pneumotachographs in the ventilator or by stand-alone flowmeters. Such flow/volume measurement devices are expensive and thus usually unaffordable in low-resource settings. Here, we aimed to design and test low-cost and technically-simple calibration and assembly pneumotachographs. The proposed pneumotachographs are made by manual perforation of a plate with a domestic drill. Their pressure-volume relationship is characterized by a quadratic equation with parameters that can be tailored by the number and diameter of the perforations. We show that the calibration parameters of t

SUBMITTER: Farre R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9376320 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature