Overview of Ventilator

Overview of Ventilator 

     The energy required for normal physiological activities of the human body is produced by oxidative metabolism in the body. Cell tissues must continuously undergo oxidative metabolism to maintain normal life activities. Under normal circumstances, healthy people can absorb oxygen from the air through breathing activities to meet the oxidative metabolism needs of various organs and tissues. However, if the physiological function of the respiratory system encounters obstacles, such as acute or chronic respiratory failure or respiratory insufficiency caused by various reasons, oxygen delivery and artificial respiration are required for rescue treatment. Artificial ventilators can effectively increase the patient's ventilation during clinical rescue and treatment. Quickly relieve hypoxia and carbon dioxide retention problems and improve ventilation function. Prolong the life of patients. It is widely used in fields such as patients with respiratory failure, emergency resuscitation, and surgical anesthesia.

       Alveoli are the physiological basis for human breathing. When the human body breathes spontaneously, the pressure difference between the expansion and contraction of the alveoli and the atmospheric pressure forms the respiratory function. When inhaling, the pressure inside the lungs is lower than the external atmospheric pressure, and when exhaling, the pressure inside the lungs is greater than the external atmospheric pressure. The basic principle of the ventilator is to mechanically establish this pressure difference to achieve a forced artificial respiration process.

     Most of the early ventilators were negative pressure ventilators, such as the box-type external negative pressure ventilator invented by Drinker in 1927. A negative pressure ventilator provides negative pressure ventilation to the patient and is sometimes called an iron lung. Although this type of ventilator is more in line with physiological characteristics, it is rarely used due to the difficulty in mastering the operation method and various respiratory parameters (such as pressure).

     Currently, most modern ventilators are positive pressure ventilators. A positive pressure ventilator uses a method to increase the pressure in the airways to deliver air into the lungs. The increased pressure within the lungs causes the lung cavities to expand. When the pressure is lost, due to the elasticity of the lung cavity tissue. Return the lungs to their original shape. Exhale part of the exchanged air out of the body.

     The development of ventilators has gone through a process from simple to complex, from single function to multi-mode and multi-functional. It has developed to a relatively mature stage. Especially in the past 20 years, ventilators have developed very rapidly. With the development of electromechanical technology, continuous advancement of material technology and improvement of computer control technology, many ventilators are equipped with parameter self-test and self-calibration, data communication, multi-parameter monitoring and display, ventilation airflow and pressure real-time waveform display, and multiple Automatic reporting of parameters and other functions. And functional improvements basically only need to be completed by updating the software. The performance of ventilators is improving day by day, and its scope of application is also expanding and popularizing. It is developing in the direction of multi-function and intelligence.