Cuirass or Curass ventilator.
Cuirass or Curass ventilator.
Haven't seen it in any official way yet, it was taken second hand from a FB post from a doc taking care of Covid 19 patients in the Seattle area, so anecdotal and not verifiable. I should not have posted it, and I apologize. There was a paper in the Lancet a couple days ago about co-morbidities in Wuhan, underlying heart disease is an indicator of poor prognosis, but that's not the same thing.
The full post is quoted and discussed in the comments on this blog post.
Bobby,
wow, that interesting. It’s sort of a portable iron lung. I’m not a doctor so I’m hoping one will jump in here. It seems to me that there’s a functional difference between inflating the alveoli with positive pressure and manipulating the abdomen to draw in air. As I understand this virus, the reason ventilation is required is pneumonia which is liquid in the lungs. They talk about three different classes of alveoli. There are the ones filled with gunk and can’t be helpful. There are the unaffected ones. The, in the middle, there are ones with some gunk and are kind of collapsed. I read about how they sort of give the lungs an extra hard jolt of air to inflate the iffy ones and get them going.
So they aren’t just using a ventilator to do routine breathing. They are also using it to increase the lungs ability to exchange oxygen.
This is really interesting stuff.
I've been in heart failure for several years now, so I have to be extra careful. Hand sanitizer in my pocket at all times.
Interesting conversation topic. I was going to suggest an in a pinch possibility using a small squirrel cage fan, but Edwin's HPLV idea is a good one.
Never, under any circumstances, consume a laxative and sleeping pill, on the same night
The curass ventilator is non-invasive and is similar in function to an iron lung. Looks like a turtle shell. By "sucking" the abdomen and rib cage out, they allow airflow into the lungs. Negative pressure vs positive pressure (PAP). Don't know enough to even start to find the plumbing you'd need to make 1.
Very time sensitive and interesting topic. Right now in the USA only 94,837 ICU beds and not every bed has ventilator. Maybe 74-75 thousand vents for ICU setting. Maybe another 35-45 thousand operating room ventilators. Assuming around 8% from infected would need acute critical care - we are good to cover all ventilators needs.
Ed.
Ed,
I would imagine that the number of ICU beds and ventilators you quoted include those that are in use for other illnesses. The question would then be how many spare ICU beds and spare Ventilators are available to serve Covid patients? I think it’s fair to exclude the units in operating rooms because, again, those are there for a purpose.
Right now the name of the game is,”flattening the curve”. Assume some number of infections. If they all happen at once, the medical system is overwhelmed as it is in Italy. If we can stretch the same number of infections over a long period, the medical system can absorb the load.
This has been fun. My daughter works for the justice department here in DC in the Office of Legal Counsel. I reported to her what I found online and what I learned here. She sent an email to her boss who is deputy attorney general. She also noticed that sen. Marco Rubio had commented on a potential shortage in icu beds and ventilators so she emailed him as well. She knows him from some previous legislation that they worked on. I guess it pays to know people. We’ll see what happens.
Many moons ago, perhaps in the early 90's, I was working in a research lab that did a one time diy try of making a external/curass type ventilator. It was made of fiberglass and resin, given the shape and the green color of the resin we also called it a turtle.
If I recall correctly one of the bigger issues then was getting a workable vacuum seal between the shell and the skin of the subject because of varying body shapes.
Two small Festool sys Hepa vacuums hooked to a two canister spray mask. In between is a rotary valve with adjustable speed switching the mash from pressure to vacuum. Air going in is clean, air coming out is clean> I could build a rotary valve, still thinking about how to rotate it slowly enough? Or a slide valve, could be operated by hand if need be.
The first thing that comes to mind, "How can this go wrong?!" Or maybe that old mantra, "First, do no harm." Often times, nothing IS better than something.
Use a vacuum? Really?!? Who here knows what happens to the human lung when you apply 100"H2O of vacuum to it? How about just 30"H2O? Anybody want to speculate? ...How about volunteers for the beta-test??
I'd recommend y'all leave the practice of medicine to the Docs. Or at least first make sure your shovel is all primed and ready, with a spot for a grave all lined out in your flower garden. Maybe even dig the hole ahead of time? - - YMMV.
Lighten up dude, I'm pretty sure no one here was actually planning on building a ventilator. You take yourself way too seriously.