What is positive end expiratory pressure used for?

PEEP is a mode of therapy used in conjunction with mechanical ventilation. At the end of mechanical or spontaneous exhalation, PEEP maintains the patient’s airway pressure above the atmospheric level by exerting pressure that opposes passive emptying of the lung.

Is positive pressure ventilation PEEP?

Positive-pressure ventilation increases intrathoracic pressure and thus may decrease cardiac output and blood pressure. Because mean airway pressure is greater with CPAP than PEEP, CPAP may have a more profound effect on blood pressure. In general, patients tolerate CPAP well, and CPAP is usually used rather than PEEP.

What is the purpose of PEEP?

The use of PEEP mainly has been reserved to recruit or stabilize lung units and improve oxygenation in patients who have hypoxemic respiratory failure. It has been shown that this helps the respiratory muscles to decrease the work of breathing and the amount of infiltrated-atelectatic tissues.

What is the normal positive end expiratory pressure?

After a full inflation up to 45 cmH2O (or sometimes 60 cmH2O), airway pressure with PEEP around 25 cmH2O, the PEEP is progressively decreased until either oxygenation or respiratory system compliance deteriorates. This value is considered as the beginning of lung collapse (58,59);

When to use positive end expiratory pressure?

Positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) is a value that can be set up in patients receiving invasive or non-invasive mechanical ventilation.

When is positive airway pressure ( PEEP ) applied?

In spontaneous ventilation using non-invasive ventilation (NIV), CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) is analogous to PEEP, but the pressure applied is maintained throughout the respiratory cycle (during both inspiration and expiration). Extrinsic PEEP (PEEPe) is applied by placing resistance in the expiratory limb of a ventilator circuit

When to use extrinsic PEEP in a ventilator?

Extrinsic PEEP (applied) A small amount of applied PEEP (4 to 5 cmH 2 O) is used in most mechanically ventilated patients to mitigate end-expiratory alveolar collapse. A higher level of applied PEEP (>5 cmH 2 O) is sometimes used to improve hypoxemia or reduce ventilator-associated lung injury in patients with acute lung injury,…

How is the expiration of a ventilator passive?

If we look at the alveoli of a person with obstructive disease we can see the obstruction on the airway (3) and the ventilator is blowing air down into the alveoli (1). Once the ventilator has finished putting air into the lung, expiration is then a passive process, relying on the passive recoil of the chest wall and lung (2).