PreVent: sEMG and mechanical ventilation

PreVent is a research project aimed at improving ventilation therapy in intensive care units. Critically ill patients often require mechanical ventilation. However, it is difficult to adjust mechanical ventilation to account for individual illness and dynamic changes. To safely guide treatment, it is essential to capture respiratory effort and the interaction between patients and ventilators as accurately as possible. Asynchronies and mismatches often go undetected in everyday clinical practice, however, and can significantly impair the recovery process.

As part of PreVent, we are therefore developing a non-invasive measurement method based on surface electromyography (sEMG), which records the electrical activity of the respiratory muscles on the skin surface. Processing and filtering this data enables continuous, non-invasive visualisation of respiratory effort and patient-ventilator interaction. We are working closely with Fraunhofer IMTE and Dräger on this project to develop the processing and filtering methods. The Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine at Charité –Universitätsmedizin Berlin is participating as a second clinical partner.

In this collaborative project, we will conduct a clinical study on a patient group from the surgical intensive care unit and at the Charité ARDS-ECMO Center. The study will examine how well the system can be used in the respective intensive care setting and what new insights it provides into the ventilation situation. The results should contribute to a better understanding of the interaction between patients and ventilators and thus form the basis for future improvements in ventilation therapy. The joint project is funded by the BMFTR (FKZ: 13GW0717C).