high Fidelity Lungs for P atient Simulator
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[ User Story ] High Fidelity Lungs for Patient Simulators University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston digitally controlled, high fidelity breathing simulator capable of recreating almost any patient breathing pattern, including the spontaneously breathing patient. Furthermore, the instructor can make the patient’s condition change over time, and have the student make appropriate changes in ventilator settings. An infant born prematurely at 28 weeks gestation suffers from neonatal respiratory distress syndrome. The baby is intubated in the delivery room and put on a ventilator. Surfactant is administered, which changes pulmonary compliance. “If you don’t recognize the change pretty quickly, it’s possible that you could pop the baby’s lung if you didn’t adjust the ventilator support,” says José D. Rojas, Ph.D., RRT, associate professor in the “You can let someone practice without putting real patients in danger and also let them see critical situations that don’t happen all that often,” Rojas says. “One of the big limitations of the manikin simulators is that even though people call them high fidelity, they are low fidelity when it comes to breathing, which is why we use the ASL 5000.“ José D. Rojas, Ph.D., RRT, Associate Professor The ASL 5000 can be used as a standalone tool to simulate challenging ventilator patients. Or it can interface with full-body patient simulators—such as the Laerdal1 simulation manikins—providing the sophisticated set of lungs necessary to model the subtleties of real-life respiratory disease states. Department of Respiratory Care, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. “One of the big limitations of the manikin simulators is that even though people call them high fidelity, they are low fidelity when it comes to breathing, which is why we use the ASL 5000,” Rojas says. Department of Respiratory Care at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. The university offers a bachelor’s degree program in respiratory care and recently launched a master’s degree track for registered therapists seeking to advance their training. The Solution: ASL 5000 Breathing Simulator with Chest Rise Module The Challenge: Manikin with High Fidelity Lungs on a Budget A simple, fully reversible lung “surgery” bypasses SimMan’s lungs and replaces them with the ASL 5000 in a matter of minutes. In Laerdal’s latest generation manikins, a special port accommodates the tubing to integrate the ASL 5000. If the ASL 5000 takes a deep breath or increases respiratory rate, so does SimMan. According to Rojas, it’s vital to give students hands-on experience to prepare them for every imaginable ventilator management scenario, like how to treat a premature infant in respiratory distress. But the highrisk nature of such a situation means students typically just observe in the delivery room or intensive care unit rather than participate in the baby’s care, he says. Advancing Respiratory Simulation That’s why Rojas and many respiratory care programs are equipping their teaching labs with the ASL 5000 Adult/Neonatal Breathing Simulator. The ASL 5000 is a

The manikin’s interface also provides realistic chest rise in response to the ASL 5000. Fully reversible lung surgery bypasses SimNewB’s lungs and replaces them with the ASL 5000 in a matter of minutes. “We’ve been using the ASL 5000 with SimMan for quite awhile,” Rojas says. “It breathes spontaneously on its own like a real person. You can change the compliance and resistance of the lungs. You can adjust patient parameters on the fly while the simulation is running. It’s lightweight and portable. And the ASL 5000 can truly trigger the ventilator.” Rojas also has developed a straightforward...