artificial respiration

• Artificial respiration


  Any measure that causes air to flow in and out of a person's lungs when natural breathing is inadequate or ceases, as in drowning, electric shock etc
• Stoppage of oxygen supply for 5 minutes causes irreversible changes in tissues of brain, particularly tissues of cerebral cortex
• Purpose of artificial respiration

  To ventilate the alveoli and to stimulate the respiratory centers
• Indications for artificial respiration

  • Drowning
  • Strangulation
  • Suffocation
  • Gas and smoke inhalation
  • Carbon monoxide poisoning
  • Electric shock
  • Anaesthesia
  • Respiratory paralysis (e.g. drugs, myasthenia gravis, poliomyelitis)
• Manual artificial respiration methods

  • Mouth-to-mouth method
  • Prone pressure method (Schafer)
  • Arm life chest pressure method (Silvester)
  • Arm lift back pressure method (Holger-Nielsen)
  • Tilting or Eve's rocking method
• Mouth-to-mouth respiratory method


  Also known as rescue breath method/expired air method/intermittent positive pressure breathing method/direct method
• Mouth-to-mouth respiratory method


  • There are several variations to this method - Mouth-to-nose, Mouth-to-nose-and-mouth, Mouth-to-mask (reduces infection), AMBU (artificial manual breathing unit) bag or bag-mask-valve, CPR mask
  • Only manual technique able to produce adequate ventilation
  • Expired air contains 16% CO2, it helps to stimulate the respiratory centers
  • Simple, effective and useful for all age groups
• Instrumental or mechanical artificial respiration methods

  • Drinker's method
  • Bragg Paul's method
  • Mechanical Ventilator
• Drinker's method


  The machine for the Drinker's method is the iron lung chamber or tank respirator
• Bragg Paul's method


  Resuscitator or ventilator
• Types of mechanical ventilation

  • Positive-pressure ventilation: pushes the air into the lungs
  • Negative-pressure ventilation: sucks the air into the lungs by making the chest expand and contract
  • Volume ventilators: pump a constant volume of air into the lungs of patients intermittently with minimum pressure
• Positive-pressure ventilation


  Can be invasive ventilation with a tube inserted into the patient's airway, performed in the intensive care unit in the hospital (e.g. endotracheal intubation, tracheostomy) or noninvasive ventilation that can be used at home by people with respiratory difficulties (e.g. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), Bilevel positive airway pressure (BiPAP), Auto titrating positive airway pressure (APAP))
• Negative-pressure ventilation


  e.g. Iron lung, chest cuirass
• Mechanical ventilator


  • Chest Cuirass
• Which artificial respiratory method is suitable when the patient can't open his mouth?
• Which artificial respiratory method is suitable when the victim, in case of injury/burns to the chest/belly?
• Which of the following is a method of artificial respiration?
• To help a person who may have stopped breathing, a _____ has to be started