Scottish Intensive Care Society

ICM Induction programme ©

Mechanical ventilation

How to set up a ventilator

The purpose of ventilation is to provide ‘life support’ without causing harm to the lungs and the patient. A major form of harm is ventilator induced lung injury (VILI).

As the patient arrives in ICU, we need to decide on the setting the following:

• FiO2
  PEEP
  Spontaneous or controlled mode
  Pressure or volume controlled
  Peak and plateau pressure
  Tidal volume
  I:E ratio

We will now discuss these in turn.

Page	3