Patent ID: 8720441

Claim:
A method for determining a patient-ventilator breath contribution index in a spontaneously breathing, mechanically ventilated patient, comprising: measuring electrical activity of a patient's respiratory muscle during inspiration and without mechanical ventilatory assist; measuring a patient's inspiratory volume without mechanical ventilatory assist; calculating a patient's efficiency to generate an inspiratory volume without mechanical ventilatory assist as a first ratio between the inspiratory volume measured without mechanical ventilatory assist and the electrical activity of the patient's respiratory muscle measured without mechanical ventilatory assist; measuring electrical activity of the patient's respiratory muscle during inspiration and with mechanical ventilatory assist; measuring a patient's inspiratory volume with mechanical inspiratory assist; calculating a patient's efficiency to generate an inspiratory volume with mechanical ventilatory assist as a second ratio between the inspiratory volume measured with mechanical ventilatory assist and the electrical activity of the patient's respiratory muscle measured with mechanical ventilatory assist; and calculating the patient-ventilator breath contribution index as a third ratio between the calculated patient's efficiency to generate an inspiratory volume without mechanical ventilatory assist and the calculated patient's efficiency to generate an inspiratory volume with mechanical ventilatory assist.