Monitoring of Breathing Effort Through Pressure Time Product Measurement Using Airway Occlusion Pressure

Mechanical ventilation is essential in the management of patients in Intensive Care. The approach to patients with prolonged weaning is challenging.In this context, it is vital to implement "diaphragmatic protection" strategies, which consist of programming the level of ventilator assistance focused on sustaining the muscular effort within an objective range. The reference method for measuring inspiratory effort is the Pressure-Time Product (PTP) of the esophagus. Recently, Bertoni et al. proposed the measurement of Occlusion Pressure as a non-invasive method, without the need to assess esophageal pressure, to estimate the magnitude of the effort and program assistance. Although it is a validated measurement for quantifying effort, it does not consider the duration of the effort performed by the patient, as well as the respiratory rate, two fundamental variables in terms of tolerance to the load. Therefore, the investigators propose the following study that will seek to validate the measurement of PTP in from the Occlusion Pressure, but considering inspiratory time and respiratory rate to obtain PTP per breath and per minute.