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Educational use only — not medical advice. This is a teaching example and must not be used to guide care of any individual patient. Learn more →

False Trigger from Patient-Ventilator Disconnection

Why disconnecting the patient from the ventilator generates a run of breaths that are falsely marked as being patient-triggered.

False triggerM1M5
Fig 1.Once the ventilator circuit is disconnected from the endotracheal tube, the pressure inside the circuit on expiration will be set PEEP. Since set PEEP is greater than atmospheric pressure, there will be positive flows typically meeting the threshold defined by the trigger variable. Therefore, you will see a series of breaths that are signaled as being patient-triggered (note the purple triangle marking each of the sequential breaths). As soon as inspiration ends, positive flows will occur triggering another breath immediately. The sequence of back-to-back breaths will end once the circuit is reconnected to the endotracheal tube.

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Comprehensive · M5 — False and failed triggers

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