This invention concerns medical ventilators and more particularly such ventilators for neonates.

Neonates are normally ventilated from the stem of a so-called T-piece of tubing to the top of which an air-oxygen or other appropriate gas mixture is applied at a steady rate. The mixture is exhausted by way of an expiratory valve which maintains a constant pressure in the system, and ventilation as such is effected by intermittent closure of the valve at a predetermined frequency unrelated to the neonate's own respiratory efforts. These efforts produce small, approximately sinusoidal pressure waves within the ventilator system which have seemed to offer a basis for triggering the ventilator to synchronise it with the neonate's respiration. In the past, several attempts to achieve such synchronisation in a manner suited to routine clinical usage proved unsuccessful because of the small size of the pressure waves and the limitations of technology at that time. More recently, further attempts using modern transducers and electronics have proved practicable. However, a subsequent comparison of this airway pressure triggered (APT) approach with others, involving airflow triggering or high frequency ventilation, led to a conclusion that the former approach had severe limitations.

An object of the present invention is to reduce these limitations. In this connection it is to be noted that 1n the approach to APT to date, triggering of ventilation was to coincide with the positive peak of the detected pressure wave which was assumed to mark the onset of inspiration. However, further study of the situation, from which study the invention arises, has shown this assumption to be incorrect.

In this study a reciprocating pump driven by a rotating crank was used to simulate a neonate and 1t was observed that an associated trigger signal for APT ventilation was out of phase

with the pump. More specifically a switch operable by the pump to mark the onset of inspiration indicated that triggering was in fact occurring halfway through expiration, 90° out of phase. In retrospect this phase shift relative to the previously assumed respiration cycle can be explained by the extreme leakiness of neonatal ventilators compared to those for use with older subjects. This leakiness is consistent with the airway pressure waves reflecting not volume, but changes in flowrate, and the latter will be 90° out of phase with respiration. In any event, on the basis of this study, it is proposed according to the invention that neonatal ventilation of airway pressure triggered form be operated substantially in synchronism with the zero-crossing point in the negative-going portion of each airway pressure cycle to coincide with the onset of natural inspriation.

An understanding of the invention may be clarified by consideration of the accompanying drawings, in which:-

Figures 1 and 2 respectively schematically illustrate the detected airway pressure wave and the presently proposed ventilator.

The pressure wave of Figure 1 is shown as a sinusoidal variation with positive and negative peaks respectively denoted A and B. Prior attempts to effect APT neonatal ventilation have assumed this wave to represent respiration, with inspiration and expiration respectively occurring in the half cycles from A to B and B to A. Accordingly ventilation was triggered at A to coincide with the onset of inspiration.

However, as indicated above, respiration is now found to be 90° out of phase in a delayed sense with inspiration occurring in the half cycle from C to D. Ventilation should therefore be triggered at point C in the detected wave of Figure 1.

The ventilator of Figure 2 is largely as proposed before and includes a T-piece 10 across the top of which gas mixture 11 is applied at a steady rate to exhaust by way of an expiratory valve 12 operable to maintain a constant pressure in the

piece 10. Ventilation to a neonate is effected by way of the stem, as indicated at 13, intermittently in synchronism with the neonates ¹ respiration efforts. These efforts are detected by a pressure transducer 14 which provides an output represented by Figure 1, this output is arpplied to a trigger circuit 15 to provide a trigger signal, and this last signal 1s applied in turn to a means 16 operable to close the valve 12 for a period appropriate to ventilation.

According to the invention the trigger circuit is augmented by some means whereby the trigger signal is provided substantially to coincide with point C on the output from transducer 14.

As so far developed, this means preferably involves a form of zero-crossing detection technique, the datum level for which represents the constant pressure which the expiratory valve acts to maintain in the system. However, other forms of means can be used.