Introduction:

Traditionally, ventilatory mechanics has been delivered in controlled modes through the use of inappropriate approaches for spontaneous ventilation.

Objective:

To measure the changes of ventilatory mechanics caused by PEEP and pressure support (PS) variations in non-invasive mechanical ventilation.

Materials and methods:

The ventilatory mechanics was evaluated through a non-invasive strategy, under different PEEP and pressure support levels. For this purpose, a mechanical simulator was used, and a database of 14 healthy subjects non-invasively connected to a mechanical ventilator was recorded.

Results:

For the 14 healthy subjects under PEEP and pressure support conditions of 0 cmH2O, the median resistance and compliance values were 91.2 [77.8-135.9] mL/cmH2O and 8.3[6.1-10.4]cmH2O/L/s, respectively. PEEP compliance showed a statistically significant increase in all subjects. On the other hand, no changes in any of the parameters were observed regarding pressure support increase.

Conclusions:

The proposed technique allowed to find compliance and resistance values consistent with those set in the mechanical simulator, which, in turn, coincide with those reported in the literature for healthy subjects. This information is useful for decision-making in intensive care units.

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