Mechanical Ventilation

From Physiology to Clinical Practice

Toronto IDCCM Education Course

Learning Objectives

Goals:

1. Enhance ICU clinicians’ understanding of the physiological principles informing assessment and management of mechanical ventilation and promote their ability to conduct a physiological bedside assessment of patient-ventilator interaction
2. Promote greater awareness of the many relevant aspects of conventional and novel invasive and non-invasive mechanical ventilation techniques
3. Build ICU clinicians’ knowledge of the management of specific clinical problems in mechanically ventilated patients: acute respiratory distress syndrome, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations, and difficult weaning from mechanical ventilation.

Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to explain and assess basic physiological aspects of patient-ventilator interaction: respiratory mechanics, respiratory muscle activity and function, patient-ventilator synchrony, and ventilator-induced lung and respiratory muscle injury.
2. Participants will be able to determine why and when mechanical ventilation can be a treatment, a supportive therapy or a source of complications.
3. Participants will be able to describe the optimal approach to liberating patients from mechanical ventilation and conduct a comprehensive clinical assessment to identify and treat causes of difficult ventilator weaning.
4. Participants will be able to deliver evidence-based management of acute respiratory failure using both non-invasive and invasive ventilatory techniques for the following conditions: acute respiratory distress syndrome, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and weaning from mechanical ventilation.