Mechanical Ventilation

Abstract

That positive-pressure mechanical ventilation can save lives was proved during the poliomyelitis epidemics of the 1950s¹. Since that time there has been a growing increase in the use of ventilatory support, and it has been closely associated with the development of critical care medicine. Early ventilators were used in conjunction with neuromuscular blocking agents to provide controlled ventilation. Today, most machines are triggered by the patient, and there is growing awareness of the complexity of patient-ventilator interaction²⁴. There is also increasing recognition that ventilators can induce subtle forms of lung injury,⁵ which has led to a reappraisal . . .