COVID-19 and VILI: Mechanical Power Measurement

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covid-19-and-vili-mechanical-power-measurement

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need for a bedside tool for lung mechanics assessment and ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI) monitoring.

Mechanical power is a unifying concept including all the components which can possibly cause VILI (volume, pressures, flow, respiratory rate), but the complexity of its mathematical computation makes it not so feasible in routine practice and limits its clinical use.

This article describe the development of a mobile application that allows to simply measure power associated with mechanical ventilation, identifying each component (respiratory rate, resistance, driving pressure, PEEP volume) as well.

The major advantage, according to the authors who developed this mathematical description of mechanical power, is that it enables the quantification of the relative contribution of its different components (tidal volume, driving pressure, respiratory rate, resistance).

PowerApp allows to measure mechanical power at a glance, bedside, during mechanical ventilation setting and monitoring, without complex mathematical computation, making the power concept useful and feasible for everyday clinical practice.

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