Decreased Lung Compliance Case Study

Patients with Decreased Lung Compliance In the healthcare setting many clinicians are curious to know how airway pressure release ventilation (APRV) works. Many modes of ventilation have been developed throughout the years that focus on lung recruitment and allows for patients to breathe at a spontaneous rate. However, APRV is one of the many modes that concentrate on providing partial ventilatory assistance to patients with some form of respiratory failure. First, can APRV protect the lungs and reduce the work of breathing? Second, is APRV an effective mode of ventilation for patients that suffer from decreased lung compliance? These are just some of the questions physicians ask themselves when determining a method to ventilate their patients. In today’s research, APRV was initially defined and introduced in clinical practice more than twenty years ago, but was not available for use until the middle of the 90’s (APRV, 2015). Due to APRV being fairly new, many professionals are not familiar with its use or success in the clinical world. Professionals are not well educated in APRV, which makes it harder to appreciate the mode of ventilation when there is limited use. As a result of its minimal use, there are very few studies that guarantee its success. So what is APRV and how does it work? Airway pressure release ventilation (APRV) is a
Spontaneous breathing in APRV results from diaphragm contraction, which should result in recruitment of dependent alveoli, consequently reducing shunt and improving oxygenation (Daoud et al, 2012. The spontaneous efforts also may enhance both recruitment and cardiac filling as compared with other controlled forms of support (Daoud et al, 2012). The long inflation phase also recruits slowly causing the alveoli to fill and the mean airway pressure to rise without increasing applied PEEP (APRV,