Effect of multimodality chest physiotherapy on the rate of recovery and prevention of complications in patients with mechanical ventilation: A prospective study in medical and surgical intensive care units.

Background: Mechanically ventilated patients have an increased risk of complications leading to ventilation weaning more difficult resulting in excessive morbidity and mortality. Chest physiotherapy plays an important role in management of ventilated patients. However, these techniques have been studied on patients as a single entity or with combination of two techniques. The present study was designed to evaluate the effect of multimodality chest physiotherapy on the rate of recovery and prevention of complications in adult ventilated patients. Materials and Methods: Out of 173 patients who were randomly allocated to two groups, 86 patients received MH and suctioning in control group and 87 patients were treated with multimodality chest physiotherapy in the study group twice daily till they were extubated. All patients were followed up for the global outcomes and complications during mechanical ventilation. Results: There were significant improvements in terms of rate of recovery in study group compared to the control group (P = 0.000). Complication rates were higher with 61.6% in the control group as compared to 26.4% in the study group. Duration of hospitalization was longer in the study group (16 ± 9.40 days) as compared to the control group (12.8 ± 6.12 days). Successful weaning from mechanical ventilation was noted in 58 patients in the study group and 24 patients in the control group which was statistically significant. Conclusions: Multi-modality chest physiotherapy protocol has shown to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia and enhance the clinical outcome in ventilated patients and may be recommended as a treatment option in ICU. It has also shown to enhance the weaning process and proved to be safe.

Suporte ventilatório / Ventilatory support in acute respiratory failure

O autor analisa as diversas formas de ventilaçäo mecânica artificial, com as respectivas indicaçöes e efeitos adversos na insuficiência respiratória aguda. Assim, säo analisados os ventiladores mecânicos ciclados a tempo, ciclados a pressäo, ciclados a volume e ventiladores de alta freqüência. Analisam-se, ainda, os tipos de suporte ventilatório: total e parcial. O suporte ventilatório total compreende ventilaçäo mecânica controlada, ventilaçäo mecânica assistida, assistida-controlada, e ventilaçäo mandatória intermitente e intermitente sincronizada. Discutem-se as técnicas acessórias de ventilaçäo mecânica: presäo positiva expiratória final e pressäo positiva contínua nas vias aéreas. Finalmente, säo discutidas outras técnicas como: alta freqüência, razäo inspiratória/expiratória invertida de ventilaçäo, ventilaçäo com suporte pressórico, oxigenaçäo extracorpórea e ventilaçäo diferencial dos pulmöes