Bedside monitoring of diaphragm electrical activity during mechanical ventilation

Abstract

Mechanical ventilation is a life saving treatment applied in about one third of all critically ill patients [1, 2]. Although a large proportion of patients receive mechanical ventilation, it is still poorly understood how the ventilator settings should be adjusted to meet the demands of each individual patient. Consequently, many patients suffer from patient-ventilator asynchrony [3], because of a mismatch between the timing of inspiration and expiration, or the delivery of too much or too little assist in relation to the patient's inspiratory efforts and respiratory load. © 2009 Springer-Verlag New York.