Artificial Ventilation in the Intensive Care Unit: An Overview

Abstract

Respiratory care in the intensive care unit (ICU) has increasingly become the domain of highly specialised physicians, nurses and in some countries, respiratory therapists. However, the COVID 19 outbreak has brought public awareness of ICU care, particularly respiratory support to the fore. This chapter provides a simple introduction to the complex world of hospital intensive care by considering (1) an introduction to the development and current practice of intensive care medicine (2) ventilation modes provided in intensive care and how these relate to modes used in portable ventilators (3) acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS): an overview for the non-intensivist and (4) lessons learned from the COVID 19 pandemic for the management of ARDS.

Within the scope of this book, this chapter concentrates on respiratory care in the ICU and how it relates with the management of respiratory failure described elsewhere but it should be emphasised that respiratory care is only one part of the often complex process of providing intensive care for the failure of several organ systems of the body. The interested reader is referred to more detailed texts for a more complete explanation of the speciality of intensive care medicine that has grown up over the past 50 or so years.