Computational tool for modeling and simulation of mechanically ventilated patients.

The mechanical ventilator settings in patients with respiratory diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) during episodes of acute respiratory failure (ARF) is not a simple task that in most cases is successful based on the experience of physicians. This paper describes an interactive tool based in mathematical models, developed to make easier the study of the interaction between a mechanical ventilator and a patient. It describes all stages of system development, including simulated ventilatory modes, the pathologies of interest and interaction between the user and the system through a graphical interface developed in Matlab and Simulink. The developed computational tool allows the study of most widely used ventilatory modes and its advantages in the treatment of different kind of patients. The graphical interface displays all variables and parameters in the common way of last generation mechanical ventilators do and it is totally interactive, making possible its use by clinical personal, hiding the complexity of implemented mathematical models to the user. The evaluation in different clinical simulated scenes adjusts properly with recent findings in mechanical ventilation scientific literature.