Handicap Equipment

A respirator is an assistive device to help patients with breathing. The respirator is currently used in conjunction with a broad range of diseases in which the patient, for various reasons, can not breathe himself. The basic function for the respirator is to press in air in the lungs and then passively release it when the breath is completed. There are a variety of settings in modern respirators so that breathing can be adjusted individually to fit the patients condition. The respirator equipment which was constructed by Carl Gunnar Engstrom around 1950, has little in common with the modern, electronic ventilation equipment used today. At the University Hospital in Uppsala there is a museum of Medicine which has respirators from Curaisse respirators through a Bangs respirator from 1952 to a 2000 Engstrom model that existed in the 1990s.

The respirator has developed considerably since the 1950s when it was constructed. Swede Carl Gunnar Engstrom designed the first modern respirator as an assistance to all those affected by respiratory paralysis as a result of polio. His respirator was completely mechanical with a large piston, which was driven by an electric motor. The air from the flask was transferred to a separate patient system which could set the breathing volume and breathing frequency. Today, respirators are considerably more flexible and fully electronic.

In order to allow for a meaningful treatment it requires that the patient has a plastic tube, called a endotracheal tube through the mouth or nose down into the trachea. It is equipped with a so-called cuff, an airlock that can be blown up so that the tube closes tightly against the inside of the trachea. Alternatively, a syringe is operated in the trachea below the larynx, a so-called tracheostomy. This is done if the treatment is expected to last for a long time, or if it is planned to operate in the patient’s mouth or nose and where the tube in that case would be in the way. This is known as invasive breathing. In recent years they have developed new methods of respirator treatment with the help of a mask, which closes tightly against the face. This is called non-invasive respirator treatment and may be seen as a support for respiration. You can connect the respirator to oxygen, which together with air is mixed to the level we want to give the patient. In the case of special treatments you can also use other gases.

Modern respirators has a number of different settings for the type of respiratory support which is considered the best. A distinction is made mainly on pressure and volume-breathing. At the pressure breathing down a inhalation in to the respirator and were blowing air into the patient until the preset pressure is achieved. This opens a valve and the air is placed passively. Volume controlled breathing means that you set it to time volume, that is, the amount of air each breath must have, and then it delivers this volume to the patient. When the quantity supplied is completely passive exhalation begins.  Time volume, read on the display, multiplied by breathing frequency and results in a output, that is, the amount of air the patient breathes in a minute.