Summarizing the logistics of liberation from mechanical ventilation.
A goal of critical care clinicians should be to liberate patients from ventilators on the first possible day to avoid the multitude of complications associated with prolonged mechanical ventilation. The past decade has been marked by a deluge of scientific studies that have illuminated methods to expedite successful liberation from mechanical ventilation. This article summarizes the principle themes for this issue of Respiratory Care Clinics of North America and distills the available data to two simple weaning algorithms.
Manthous
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Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Bridgeport Hospital, Bridgeport, Connecticut 06610, USA. pcmant@bpthosp.org
D000465:Algorithms; D006801:Humans; D015300:Ventilator Weaning