How do we know that a patient on mechanical ventilator is breathing himself /herself.
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Hmm. Good question. It will be difficult for a lay man to evaluate that. Because ventilators have different settings. If the patient is conscious and is able to cough then probably he is breathing on it's own. But I am guessing that you would like to know in case of an unconscious person on ventilator. Most patients on ventilators would be on SIMV setting. In whic h a ceratin amount of respirations are set to be given/assisted by the ventilators and rest the patient takes himself. So ask your doctor for the set respiratory rate insimv mode and count the patient's respiration yourself. For eg if your doctor says that that the set rest rate is 12 and you count the patuient's resp rate as 16 then the patient is taking atlest 4 breaths on his or her own. In assist control mode almost every braeth is assisted by rthe ventilator so it is difficult to assess by alay person. If the mode is cpap then every breath being taken is being initiated by the patient. To summarise ask you doctor the mode of ventilator setting, ACM or BIPAP or CPAP. It is difficult to tell inACMV mode. Follow the above example in SIMV mode if in CPAPmode then your patient is definitely breathing by himself. Hope it helps.
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