Mechanical ventilation appears (to me, a naive observer) to help only push air into the lungs if a person cannot breathe well— that is to say, having difficulty inhaling and exhaling. It makes sense to me that a person who is perhaps paralyzed would need a machine to force the lungs the work, mechanically speaking.
But how does this help someone suffering from injury or disease in the lungs themselves? Is a ventilator better at delivering oxygen than our own normal breathing process?
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If there is a problem in your lungs you may need to breathe more deeply just to get enough air while sitting still or lying down. This deep, labored breathing can be exhausting, and in fact if you have to keep this up for long enough your breathing muscles can give out. So in these cases it can be beneficial to let a ventilator do the heavy lifting instead.
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