I use an adaptoservo ventilator at night, which really is just a BiPAP with different software. In fact, the machine looks identical to Resmed CPAPs, making me believe it’s just software differences.
Thousands of Americans use these devices.
It is designed to detect a lapse in breathing (in central sleep apnea, your brain forgets to tell you to breathe), and give you a puff to trigger your breathing reflex.
Couldn’t these be modified to function as vents?
In: Engineering
It depends very heavily on how the PAP is designed, and depending on its hardware, the answer is probably not.
A PAP is designed to provide, as you know, Positive Airway Pressure. So its whole job is to keep the pressure in your throat and trachea above standard atmospheric pressure. This helps keep the airway open and in operation. CPAPs maintain a single pressure, while BiPAPs have two pressure settings, one for inhaling and one for exhaling.
While PAPs are a member of the ventilator family, they’re not the same as an inpatient ventilator. The vents used in a hospital setting are designed to take over a patient’s breathing when, for whatever reason, the patient cannot breathe him- or herself. To do that, the machine needs to be able to deliver enough pressure to fill the lungs, not so much that it damages the lungs, and be adjustable to every patient’s lung volume and oxygen requirements (pressure and rate). Consequently, the hardware used to apply air pressure is different, and the firmware controlling the device is very different from that found in a PAP.
Could PAPs help people having difficulty breathing? Absolutely; they do it every day. Could they be used as mechanical ventilation to take over breathing from a patient in respiratory arrest? No. Not as they’re designed, and the modifications would be extensive, requiring a complete rewrite of the software, and even then the hardware isn’t really up to it.
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