Mechanical ventilation and weaning is one of the most common procedures carried out in critically ill patients. Appropriate management of these patients is of paramount importance to improve the outcome in terms of both morbidity and mortality. This book offers the physiological and clinical basis required to improve the care delivered to patients undergoing mechanical ventilation.

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1 Mechanical Ventilation in Acute Respiratory Failure: What We Have Learnt and What We Still Need to Learn.- 2 Controlled Mechanical Ventilation.- 3 Proportional Assist Ventilation.- 4 Influence of Ventilator Performance on Assisted Modes of Ventilation.- 5 Application of Tracheal Gas Insufflation for Critical Care Patients.- 6 What a Clinician Should Do When a Patient Fights the Ventilator.- 7 Critical Illness Polyneuropathy and Critical Illness Myopathy.- 8 Factors Associated with Mortality in Mechanically Ventilated Patients.- 9 Pathophysiology of Weaning-Associated Respiratory Failure.- 10 Rapid Shallow Breathing: Causes and Consequences.- 11 Cardiopulmonary Interactions and Gas Exchange During Weaning from Mechanical Ventilation.- 12 Weaning-Induced Cardiac Failure.- 13 Physiopathological Determinants of Patient-Ventilator Interaction and Dyssynchrony During Weaning.- 14 Weaning Criteria: Physiologic Indices in Different Groups of Patients.- 15 How Should We Interpret Weaning-Predictive Indices?.- 16 Timing and Criteria for Beginning Weaning.- 17 The Importance of Clinical Algorithms to Facilitate Weaning and Extubation.- 18 Strategies for Implementation of Weaning Algorithms in the Clinical Arena.- 19 The Role of Muscle Training and Rehabilitation During Weaning.- 20 The Role of Noninvasive Mechanical Ventilation in Facilitating Weaning and Extubation.- 21 Expanding Horizons of Noninvasive Ventilation.- 22 Unplanned Extubation.- 23 Extubation Failure: Can It Be Prevented or Predicted?.- 24 Continuous Positive Airway Pressure in the Hypoxemic Patient.- 25 Closed-Loop Systems for Mechanical Ventilation.- 26 Tracheostomy in the ICU: Why, When and How?.