METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR CONTROLLING PATIENT RECOVERY

Abstract

A method and system for controlling patient recovery from anesthesia with an inhalation anesthesia agent are provided, wherein the patient during the recovery is ventilated with a ventilator, and the method comprises decreasing inhalation anesthesia agent concentration in the patient breathing gas to a level enabling patient spontaneous breathing, monitoring the expiration of the patient to determine at least the expiratory O2 concentration, determining a target level for the expiratory O2 level for the patient during recovery, comparing the determined expiratory O2 concentration with the target level for the expiratory O2 level for the patient, and controlling the O2 concentration in the ventilation gas to allow the expiratory O2 level for the patient to match the target level for the expiratory O2 concentration.

Claims

1. A method for controlling patient recovery from anesthesia with an inhalation anesthesia agent, wherein the patient during the recovery is ventilated with a ventilator, the method comprising: decreasing inhalation anesthesia agent concentration in the patient breathing gas to a level allowing patient spontaneous breathing, monitoring the expiration of the patient to determine at least the expiratory O2 concentration, determining a target level for the expiratory O2 concentration for the patient, comparing the monitored expiratory O2 concentration with the target level for the expiratory O2 concentration for the patient, and controlling the O2 concentration in the patient breathing gas to allow the expiratory O2 concentration for the patient to match the target level for the expiratory O2 concentration.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: comparing the monitored expiratory O2 concentration with the target level for the expiratory O2 concentration for the patient, and increasing ventilation of the patient in case the measured patient expiratory O2 concentration is below the set target level.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: monitoring the expiration of the patient to determine the expiratory CO2 concentration, determining a target level for the expiratory CO2 concentration for the patient during recovery, comparing the monitored expiratory CO2 concentration with the target level for the expiratory CO2 concentration for the patient, and controlling the ventilation of the patient to allow the expiratory CO2 concentration to match the target level for the expiratory CO2 concentration.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: monitoring the expiration of the patient to determine the expiratory anesthesia agent concentration, determining a target level for the expiratory anesthesia agent concentration such that patient muscle action is allowed, detecting an expiratory anesthesia agent concentration which is equal or below said target level for the expiratory anesthesia agent concentration, reducing the ventilation of the patient, determining a target level for the expiratory O2 concentration for the patient during the ventilation reduction, comparing the monitored expiratory O2 concentration with the target level for the expiratory O2 concentration for the patient during the reduction of the ventilation, and controlling the O2 concentration in the patient breathing gas to allow the expiratory O2 concentration for the patient to match the target level for the expiratory O2 concentration.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: monitoring the patient's breathing to detect possible spontaneous breathing.

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising: detecting spontaneous breathing of the patient, and providing breathing support by providing elevated inspiration pressure with the ventilator.

7. The method according to claim 6, further comprising: detecting spontaneous breathing of the patient, and controlling the ventilator to adjust to the breathing frequency imposed by the patient's breathing.

8. A system for controlling patient recovery from anesthesia with an inhalation anesthesia agent, wherein the patient during the recovery is ventilated with a ventilator, the system comprising: a breathing device for ventilating a patient, the breathing device comprising tubing to connect the breathing device to a patient's breathing circuit, a ventilator connected to the breathing device to provide a pressurized breathing gas, a ventilator controller connected to the ventilator to control the gas volume and breath frequency provided with the ventilator, a gas mixer and vaporizer for providing patient breathing gas, the gas mixer and vaporizer being connected to the ventilator, a patient gas controller connected to the gas mixer and vaporizer for controlling the composition of the fresh patient breathing gas provided with the gas mixer and vaporizer, a sensor connected to the patient gas controller, for providing at least monitored expiratory O2 concentration for the patient, the patient gas controller being adapted to compare the expiratory O2 concentration for the patient with a target concentration for said expiratory O2 concentration and to provide instructions for the gas mixer to control the composition of the patient breathing gas to thereby allow the expiratory O2 concentration to match said target O2 concentration.

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein the sensor is adapted to determine the expiratory CO2 concentration.

10. The system according to claim 9, wherein the sensor is connected to the ventilator controller to allow the ventilator controller to control the ventilation pressure and frequency provided by means of the ventilator.

11. The system according to claim 10, wherein the sensor is adapted to determine the occurrence of spontaneous breathing and wherein the ventilator controller is adapted to instruct the ventilator the adapt to the breathing frequency imposed by said spontaneous breathing.

12. Computer readable medium storing computer executable instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform steps comprising: decreasing inhalation anesthesia agent concentration in the patient breathing gas to a level allowing patient spontaneous breathing, monitoring the expiration of the patient to determine at least the expiratory O2 concentration, determining a target level for the expiratory O2 concentration for the patient, comparing the monitored expiratory O2 concentration with the target level for the expiratory O2 concentration for the patient, and controlling the O2 concentration in the patient breathing gas to allow the expiratory O2 concentration for the patient to match the target level for the expiratory O2 concentration.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0030] The accompanying drawings illustrate presently exemplary embodiments of the disclosure and serve to explain, by way of example, the principles of the disclosure.

[0031] FIG. 1 is a schematical representation of an anesthesia delivery system according to the present disclosure, and

[0032] FIG. 2 shows a flow chart of an embodiment of the method according to the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0033] In the present disclosure, the wording anesthesia inhalation agent is used to indicate an active substance which can be administered by means of inhalation and which is specifically adapted to anesthetize a patient during surgery. The wording volatile anesthetic and the wording anesthesia inhalation agent refer to the same type of actives used in inhalation anesthesia procedures.

[0034] In the present disclosure, the wording end-expiration and expiration are used to refer to the gas expired by the patient.

[0035] In the present disclosure, the wording breathing device is used for a device for ventilating a patient, such as a breathing circuit.

[0036] The present disclosure relates to controlling the ventilation and oxygenation of a patient at the end of an anesthesia procedure. This means controlling automatically the ventilation and oxygenation during recovery and reducing the ventilation from a first level, sufficient for gas exchange needed during the period of anesthesia towards disconnection of the patient from the ventilation system, once the patient is able meet the gas exchange demand using spontaneous breathing.

[0037] The time of recovery is a time of risk. Normally, patients are observed on a one-to-one basis by an anesthetist or recovery nurse until they have regained airway control and cardiovascular stability and are able to communicate.

[0038] The patient is disconnected from a ventilation system and extubated once the patient is conscious, able to maintain a clear airway and exhibits protective airway reflexes. Moreover, the respiration and oxygenation should be at a satisfactory level. In practice measurements are taken to ensure that the patient's cardiovascular system is stable with no unexplained cardiac irregularity or persistent bleeding, with a pulse and blood pressure at an acceptable level.

[0039] One objective of the solution according to the present disclosure is to provide an automated system and procedure to allow safe recovery of a patient, wherein the procedure is both safe and operator-independent. In order to allow such a procedure, an anesthesia delivery system is used with a sensor adapted to measure at least the patient end-expiration O.sub.2 concentration. The sensor could be adapted to also measure other end-expiration components such as CO.sub.2 and anesthesia agent concentrations. Moreover, a gas mixer is used for controlling the fresh breathing gas flow rate and flow concentration to the breathing circuit during the recovery to supply oxygen to meet the patient's oxygenation demand. The delivery system further has a ventilator for ventilating patient lungs to transport the breathing gas oxygen to the lungs and to remove carbon dioxide. The ventilation also provides samples of the gas composition in patient's lungs for measurement of the end-expiration concentrations.

[0040] FIG. 1 is a schematical representation of an anesthesia delivery system 1 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The anesthesia delivery system 1 comprises a breathing device or breathing circuit 2, a patient limb tubing 7, and a carbon dioxide absorber. Moreover, the system comprises a ventilator 3 to provide ventilation of the airways and lungs of the patient 5 and a gas mixer/vaporizer 4 providing fresh breathing gas to the breathing circuit. A patient monitor 6 is connected to the patient limb tubing 7 connecting the breathing device 2 with the patient 5. The patient monitor 6 comprises a sensor configured to monitor at least the O.sub.2 concentration in a gas flow and is adapted to receive information relating to the gas concentration measurements relating to the expiration of the patient 5. The connection between the patient monitor 6 and the patient limb tubing 7 may comprise a gas sampling line for obtaining a breathing gas sample from the patient limb tubing 7 to allow analysis in a gas analyzer connected to the patient monitor 6. Alternatively, the connection may be electrical if the gas analyzer is directly connected to the patient limb tubing 7.

[0041] The breathing circuit 2 will allow gas to be expired from the lungs. Normally, the breathing circuit 2 re-circulates the expired gas towards the ventilator 3 in order to allow the expired gas to be re-used for subsequent ventilation. This is done with the objective to save the relative expensive and environmentally hostile anesthesia components. Before this step of re-circulation of the expired gas, the CO.sub.2 in the gas flow is removed by means of a CO.sub.2 absorber. The remaining gas flow is mixed with a quantity of fresh breathing gas provided by means of the gas mixer/vaporizer 4.

[0042] The patient monitor 6 could also be adapted to receive other signals relating to specific physiological parameters of the patient 5, such as the blood hemoglobin values and values relating the oxygen saturation (SpO.sub.2) using applicable sensors fitted to the patient 5.

[0043] The ventilator 3 may be of any automatically controlled type, such as an electronically controlled type which is known for the use in anesthesia delivery systems. The system 1 further comprises a ventilator controller 8 which is operably connected to the ventilator 3. The ventilator controller 8 is connected to the patient monitor 6, the receive information relating the expiratory gas concentrations. The ventilator controller 8 is further connected to a user interface 9. This user interface 9 is adapted to allow an operator to enter target information, such as a target level for the O.sub.2 and CO.sub.2 in the gas expired by the patient 5. The user interface 9 is further adapted to provide instructions, such as a preferred transition rate of any of the gas components in the patient's expiration. The user interface 9 could also be used to trigger to the start of the automatic patient recovery process.

[0044] Based on the input received from both the user interface 9 and the patient controller 6, the ventilation controller 8 is able to generate instructions for the ventilator 3. These instructions may relate to the breath volume, the breath inspiration pressure, the breath frequency and the end expiratory pressure level. The ventilator controller 8 also receives information relating a patient's spontaneous breathing action. This information can be provided via connection 11. In addition, or instead of the connection 11 similar information could be send to the ventilator controller 8 using the patient monitor 6.

[0045] If the ventilator controller 8 receives information relating to spontaneous breathing of the patient 5, the ventilation controller 8 can initiate immediate breath support by providing an elevated inspiration pressure. In case the spontaneous breathing action is repeated, the patient 5 takes over the breath frequency and the ventilator controller 8 is able to adjust the support level provided by the ventilator 3 to the frequency imposed by the patient 5. In case the spontaneous breathing would stop, the ventilator controller 8 is adapted to take control of the breathing, including the breathing frequency that is imposed to the patient 5. The ventilator controller 8 continues to receive further signals from the patient gas controller 10 via the connection 12. Through this connection the ventilation controller 8 receives information relating the fresh breathing gas delivery to the patient 5. This information can be used to review whether the ventilation is sufficient from a point of view of patient oxygenation. The maximum fresh breathing gas O.sub.2 concentration in combination with the flow rate and the measured patient end expiratory O.sub.2 concentration provide information about a possible need to increase the ventilation to meet the patient oxygenation demand. In case the measured patient end-expiratory O.sub.2 concentration is below the set target level despite of maximal fresh breathing gas oxygen supply, this will provide an indication that ventilation should be increased.

[0046] This ventilation control action includes adjusting the ventilator generated support pressure for patient initiated spontaneous breaths. This control further includes generation of additional breaths if the patient initiated spontaneous breaths are missing for a period of time. For example, 20 seconds is typically used as interval to regard the presence of apnea. This would also provide a sample of patient expiration gas for every 20 seconds to ensure proper patient oxygenation.

[0047] The ventilator generated support pressure is controlled also to provide breath volume enabling adequate sample of the patient alveolar gas for valid monitoring of patient expired O2, agent and CO2 concentrations.

[0048] Once the patient recovered, the spontaneous actions repeat regularly to control the breathing frequency and the spontaneous breathing actions are sufficiently strong. When the measured end-tidal CO.sub.2 remains under the given recovery CO.sub.2 target the ventilator support can be reduced and finally stopped.

[0049] The gas mixer & vaporizer controller 10 receives the gas concentration from the patient monitor 6 and the target levels for O.sub.2 and CO.sub.2 for the recovery process from the user interface 9. The O.sub.2 target may be unchanged from the anesthesia phase target but the CO.sub.2 target is likely increased to allow CO.sub.2 accumulation to stimulate spontaneous breathing. The controller 10 compares the targets with the respective measured values and instructs the gas mixer 4 for O.sub.2 concentration needed to match the target and the ventilator 3 to match both O.sub.2 and CO.sub.2 targets.

[0050] FIG. 2 shows the different steps for automatic patient recovery according to an embodiment of the invention. In a first step 20, the recovery process is initiated. In a further step 21 the concentration of the inhalation anesthesia agent in the ventilation gas is decreased from a first level, adapted for anesthesia purposes, to a second level which is adapted to initiate the patient recovery. This decrease in inhalation anesthesia gas concentration can be obtained by at least partially closing the vaporizer and increasing the fresh breathing gas flow rate. The effect of these measures is that the breathing circuit and alveolar gas will be flushed to remove the anesthesia agent. The O.sub.2 concentration of the flushing flow is controlled to allow the measured O.sub.2 concentration in the end-expiration gas to match with set target value. The ventilation is controlled to match the measured CO.sub.2 value with the given target considering also the oxygenation comparison and oxygen delivery state.

[0051] At the same time possible N.sub.2O delivery will be stopped and the balance gas will comprise mainly N.sub.2. The gas mixture will be controlled for the fresh breathing gas O.sub.2 concentration to match the measured end-expiratory O.sub.2 concentration with the target level. The process initiation at step 20 is forwarded to ventilation controller 8 and mixer controller 10 together with related target input data.

[0052] The phase of initiating the patient recovery continues until the agent concentration has decreased to a predetermined level that enables the patient to use his muscles. Once the patient is able to breathe spontaneously, the ventilation can be reduced to allow the accumulation of body CO.sub.2, while the O.sub.2 supply is still continued. At the same time, the continued ventilation provides information of the patient gas status in form of new end-expiratory gas concentration measurements. This step is indicated with reference 22 in FIG. 2. The ventilation controller 8 will begin to monitor the patient inhalation agent concentration to check whether the first target level for agent concentration in the end-expiration is reached. This concentration may be related to the MAC or minimum alveolar concentration of the patient which is an agent specific value that describes the depth of patient anesthesia. The level of the MAC is typically: MAC=1, with 50% of the patients not responding to surgical stimulus and being e.g. 0.5*MAC or 0.7 MAC. That can also be defined as MAC-awake, which is 0.3-0.5*MAC. Adult MAC concentrations may vary between different studies, but typical values at sea level pressure are 2% for sevoflurane, 6% for desflurane and 1.2% for isoflurane.

[0053] The reduction of the ventilation of the patient may be obtained by either a reduction of breath volume or a reduction in the respiration rate. However, the breath volume must remain significantly larger than the ventilation dead space to allow valid measurements of the end-expiration gas concentrations. Since the breath rate determines how often the patient controller 6 receives information about these gas concentrations, the breath rate must also be maintained above minimum level. Throughout this procedure the patient gas controller 10 has priority to adjust the fresh gas mixture to match the measured O.sub.2 concentration with the given target. However, oxygen delivery requires also ventilation, thus in case the fresh gas controller cannot maintain the O.sub.2 target level, the ventilation may need to be increased.

[0054] During this process the ventilator controller 8 regulates the artificial breathing, but also detects and supports patient spontaneous breaths. Initially, the spontaneous breaths are missing and the ventilator controller 8, controls both the breath rate and the breath volume. When the spontaneous breaths start to appear, the spontaneous breaths take over the breath rate control and ventilator controller 8 is used to adjust the breath volume.

[0055] As indicated in step 23 of the method, according to FIG. 2 control targets are set for the ventilation reduction while, the breathing of the patient 5 is controlled to assure the patient oxygenation. The presence of spontaneous breaths is checked in step 24. If such spontaneous breaths do not appear, the ventilator 3 continues to provide ventilation as indicated in step 26. If the spontaneous breaths do appear the ventilator 3 is used to provide pressure support as indicated in step 25. After the step 25, it is monitored whether the patient 5 is able to maintain the spontaneous ventilation in step 27. If the patient 5 is not able to maintain spontaneous ventilation, the method returns to step 23.

[0056] Once the first target agent concentration measured in the end-expiration indicates that the patient is ready for spontaneous breathing, the aim is to elevate body CO.sub.2 concentration by setting new target concentrations in order to stimulate spontaneous breathing at respiratory center of the patient's body. Partial pressure required for this is around 6 kPa that corresponds to 6.5% measured end-expiratory dry gas concentration. This set level may be acquired gradually from the target set during anesthesia along with declining agent concentration, or as a single change to the recovery target value.

[0057] Gradually, while the spontaneous breathing increases, the ventilator controller 8 reduces the ventilator support to match the measured CO.sub.2 concentration in the end-expiration with the set target level. Finally, the patient 5 can maintain ventilation without ventilator support. An indication for the fact that the patient 5 is able to breath without ventilation support, is given by a measured CO.sub.2 concentration which is kept below a target level, without ventilator support. If the breathing support pressure has arrived at a minimum of, for example, 4 cmH.sub.2O to overcome endotracheal tube flow resistance, regular spontaneous breath rate and the measured end-expiratory CO.sub.2 concentration is kept below the given target, the patient 5 is ready to be disconnected from the ventilation and the tubing can be removed from the patient's body as indicated in step 28 of FIG. 2.

[0058] The method and the system according to the present disclosure help to reduce the risk for post-operative oxygenation problems due to atelectasis. This reduction of risk is realized by the fact that the patient lungs no longer need filled with high concentration oxygen prior to interruption of ventilation.