CPAP and BIPAP

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Anchor lead: There are strategies to alleviate the shortage of ventilators for people with COVID-19, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Ventilators, machines that help people with severe COVID-19 breath, are in short supply. Enid Neptune, a lung expert and critical care medicine physician at Johns Hopkins, says one strategy that’s being discussed is using machines used for sleep apnea known as CPAP or BIPAP machines, of which there are many.

Neptune: The risk of disseminating droplets would definitely be higher than they would be with a closed system like a ventilator system. But what we’re recognizing is that in this situation where we’re worried about not having enough ventilators we should consider some of these noninvasive modes in which you are able to ventilate a patient.  We can change them in a way that they can be much more protective than we think they are now.  :27

Neptune says other advantages of CPAP or BIPAP would be not having to sedate the person as well as greater ease in managing their therapy. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.