Ventilator Management Strategies for Critical Care (Lung Biology in Health and Disease)

Brown Univ., Providence, RI. Current reference of disease-specific strategies for the management of critical care patients on mechanical ventilators. Discusses methods to diagnose, manage, and avoid ventilator-related pneumonia and other complications. For nurses and clinicians.

This state-of-the-art reference provides current and effective disease-specific strategies for the management of patients receiving mechanical ventilation-emphasizing weaning processes, monitored sedation, minimization of complications and infection, and new modes of treatment for patients in critical care.
Exploring ancillary approaches, noninvasive positive pressure ventilation, oxygenation, and bronchodilator therapy as options to optimize cost and reduce injury, Ventilator Management Strategies for Critical Care discusses
• methods to diagnose, manage, and avoid ventilator-associated pneumonia
• consequences of extubation failure
• mechanics of true closed-loop ventilation
• neuromuscular blocking agents and physiological disturbances
• therapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• and more!
With contributions by over 40 seasoned experts in the field, Ventilator Management Strategies for Critical Care is a valuable resource for intensive or critical care and pulmonary or critical care specialists, surgical critical care specialists, anesthesiologists, physiologists, physiatrists and rehabilitation physicians, respiratory therapists, and medical school and graduate students in these disciplines.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:David J. Dries, MD(University of Minnesota Medical School)
Description:This multiauthor textbook describes techniques for the use of invasive and noninvasive ventilation in the treatment of various cardiopulmonary disorders.
Purpose:As stated by the editors, the book serves as a thorough and contemporary treatise on ventilator management bringing recent developments into perspective.
Audience:Teachers, researchers, practitioners and senior trainees using mechanical ventilation in the intensive care unit may benefit from this work. The editors and authors represent an international group of authorities from North and South America and western Europe.
Features:The book's 22 chapters are divided into six parts that cover recent epidemiologic studies on development of ventilators from an international perspective as well as utilization of protocol-driven strategies and problems associated with mechanical ventilation including management of agitation and the airway. Perhaps the heart of the material, however, is a series of chapters in part three describing specific ventilator management for asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and other sources of acute respiratory failure. Concluding chapters examine recent data on weaning and extubation along with reduction in complications of mechanical ventilation including ventilator-induced lung injury. The chapters are well written and include ample reference lists. Reference dates vary among chapters but some provide data as recent as the year prior to publication. Black-and-white illustrations are legible but reproduce with variable quality. An excellent feature is the inclusion of an extensive author index for references along with the traditional subject index of approximately 20 pages.
Assessment:This is a comprehensive compilation of recent pulmonary work spanning our understanding of mechanical support of respiratory failure. It is a worthy companion to Physiological Basis of Ventilatory Support edited by Marini and Slutsky (Marcel Dekker, 1998). The reader must expect the problems that are inherent in a multiauthor book, including duplication of effort and information lag in non-pulmonary topics.

Understanding the specific cause and appropriate treatment for acute respiratory failure (ARF) is the backbone upon which critical care medicine has been built.