A Ventilator Generating a Positive or Negative Internal Compliance

Abstract

This paper describes technical details of a ventilator for altering the resistive and elastic load placed on respiratory muscles during spontaneous breathing in intubated infants. Positive or negative values for ventilator resistance and/or ventilator compliance can be chosen by superimposing the weighted sum of the flow and/or the volume signal over the input to a pressure controller within the pressure feedback control system of the ventilator.