Study group discussion: Management of ARDS

Anyone over here who knows the management of ARDS?

PEEP

Positive end expiratory pressure and 100% oxygen.

It's like during expiration your alveoli collapse, especially in ARDS since their surfactant is gone, so to prevent that collapse you give a bout of positive pressure at the end of expiration.
I don't know how they generate it but this is the mechanism!

Aah.

PEEP is continuous flow generated at certain fixed pressure that stops the alveoli from collapsing during the expiration. Pressure usually kept around 5

So the pressure is kept continuous during the whole time?

Yeah it's continuous during the both inspiration and expiration!

Umm then why is it called "End expiratory"?

That's a very good question actually. Don't know exactly why it's named that way!

Ever heard of low tidal volume ventilation? Aka lung protective ventilation? Aka baby lung concept?
It's used in managing ARDS. Since many alveoli are fluid filled and the patient effectively will have lesser tidal volume than normal. If we give the normal tidal volume the patent alveoli will burst due to barotrauma!
Inspite of normal tidal volume - 8-12ml/kg, we give 4-6ml/kg body weight for ARDS.

Also, you treat the underlying cause of ARDS.

You even have to restrict fluid overload. That's the other most important point!

Yeah read that too, diuretics are beneficial to some extent. Steroids are of no use.

Yup.

Also NO (Nitrogen oxide) is of no use.

Yeah for ARDS. During the various trails for the treatment of ARDS they observed that increasing the tidal volume lead to worsening most probably due to inflammation due to repeated opening and closing of alveoli with each inspiration and expiration ultimately affecting the structure of alveoli and their ability to perform their job. Low tidal volume along with PEEP significantly reduced the mortality in the patients with ARDS. So that the standard treatment at present.

I read there is other device called high RR..it provides respiratory rate of 15 to 20 cycles per SECOND.

It has a very low tidal volume but..Almost 1-2 ml / kg