Patent ID: 7918226

Claim:
A method for identifying an occlusion in a breathing tube of a ventilator system comprising: obtaining respiratory data related to the respiration of a patient; transferring the respiratory data to a processor; and implementing the processor to evaluate the respiratory data to automatically identify the presence of an occlusion in the breathing tube, the evaluation comprising: identifying a first data section in the respiratory data that represents an unobstructed respiratory cycle for the patent; identifying a second data section in the respiratory data that represents a respiratory cycle for the patient for which the presence of the occlusion in the breathing tube is to be determined; calculating a first rate of change of at least a portion of the first data section; calculating a second rate of change of at least a portion of the second data section; and comparing the second rate of change to the first rate of change to determine if the second rate of change differs from the first rate of change by more than a threshold amount.