Unloading Mechanical Ventilation (VUMV) with High Volume, no PEEP and little Sedation for patients with ARDS and COVID19 - Abstract
ARDS, a syndrome of various diseases with severe hypoxemia including COVID-19, is treated with low volumes, high PEEP and low pressure. Mortality is high with 30 to 50% and up to 80% during the SARS COV2 pandemia. A different strategy, to relief dyspnea with a high tidal volume, low PEEP to overventilate the patients and put their overloaded muscles at rest results in much lower mortality rates from 2 to 8%. However patients in these series mightbe different and randomized studies lack. In addition, actual ventilators favour the lung protective strategy, as they are underpowered to effectively support the respiratory muscles.
In addition to a randomized study comparing the unloading strategy to the lung protective, which is on the way, we designed a ventilator to meet this unloading strategy in that it automatically keeps the patient passively ventilated.