Ventilator | medical technology | Britannica (original) (raw)

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barotrauma

• In barotrauma
  …of barotrauma may occur during mechanical ventilation for respiratory failure. Air pumped into the chest by the machine can overdistend and rupture a diseased portion of the lung. Subsequent breaths delivered by the ventilator are then driven into the mediastinum (the space between the lungs), the pleural spaces, or under…
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COVID-19

• 
  In COVID-19
  …ventilation might never fully recover; ventilator use is associated with severe muscle atrophy and weakness, which significantly impact survival and quality of life.
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maintenance of brain-dead patient

• In death: Mechanisms of brain-stem death
  …specialized units and put on ventilators just before spontaneous breathing ceased. In some cases the effect was dramatic. When a blood clot could be evacuated, the primary brain damage and the pressure cone it had caused might prove reversible. Spontaneous breathing would return. In many cases, however, the massive, structural…
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• 
  In health law: Relationship of law and ethics
  …or failed heart) and mechanical ventilators (which breathe for patients who are unable to use their lungs), sometimes have been able to postpone a death that previously had been imminent. Under these circumstances, it may be difficult to relate the rules of ethics to the realities of the situation. For…
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