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How Ventilators Helps COVID-19 Patients
In the following article we'll mention an important topic that's "How Ventilators Help COVID Patients" let's discuss within the article given below:
COVID-19 is stretching health care resources in several different ways, but there is a key piece of equipment getting plenty of attention: ventilators.
So, what's a ventilator, and why does it matter?
The machine helps with two important functions: get more oxygen into the lungs and take CO2 or carbon dioxide out.
A ventilator is actually a fairly fancy piece of technological equipment that is actually designed to breathe for somebody who is not able to breathe effectively on their own.
Lungs are interwoven with blood vessels, which is how oxygen gets into the bloodstream and CO2 gets carried out. COVID-19 makes this exchange much more difficult in the most severe cases because a patient's lungs are inflamed and filled with or full of fluid. (This also happens with infections like pneumonia).
A ventilator essentially helps a patient's lungs accomplish this task. Modern ventilators actually consist of a pump machine and a tube that health care professionals slide into your windpipe in order to control airflow.
It's important to actually understand that ventilators don't cure COVID-19, but they assist support lung function while a patient's body is fighting the infection.
The government has said it'll buy thousands of ventilators in order to help ease the pressure on hospitals caused by the coronavirus crisis.
For patients with the worst effects of the infection, a ventilator can actually offer the best and most effective chance of survival.
Simply put, a ventilator actually takes over the body's breathing process when the disease has caused the lungs to fail.
This gives the patient time to actually fight off the infection and recover.
Various sorts of medical ventilation are often used.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), some 80% of individuals with Covid-19 - the disease caused by coronavirus - recover without actually needing hospital treatment.
But one person in six becomes seriously ill.
In these severe cases, the virus causes huge damage to the lungs, causing the body's oxygen levels to drop exponentially and thus making it harder to breathe.
To alleviate this, a ventilator is actually used to push air, with increased levels of oxygen, into the lungs.
The ventilator also includes a humidifier, which adds heat and moisture to the air supply so it matches the patient's body temperature.
Patients are given medication to relax the respiratory muscles so their breathing can actually be fully regulated by the machine.
People with milder symptoms may also be given ventilation using facemasks, nasal masks, or mouthpieces which actually allows air or an oxygen mixture to be pushed into the lungs.
This is referred to as "non-invasive" ventilation, as no internal tubes are required.
Another type of ventilation - continuous positive airway pressure or CPAP - keeps a patient's airways continuously open,
Early reports from Lombardy in northern Italy suggest about 50% of patients given CPAP have avoided the requirement for full mechanical ventilation.
A type of CPAP ventilation using a hood, where pressurized oxygen is pumped in via a valve, reduces the risk or danger of airborne transmission of the virus.
Intensive Care Units (ICUs) would usually put patients that are suffering acute respiratory distress on mechanical ventilation quickly, in order to make sure oxygen levels in the body actually stay normal.
However, Dr. Shondipon Laha, who is from the intensive care Society, said that until and unless they become seriously ill, most patients with Covid-19 wouldn't really need or require a mechanical ventilator and could actually be treated at home or with supplementary oxygen.
Although there were several risks or dangers when using ventilators, like not knowing who would really suffer long-term effects, Dr. Laha said that sometimes a ventilator was "the only way of actually getting oxygen into the patient".
Another issue, Dr. Laha explained, was having enough trained staff in order to operate the ventilators correctly.