Table 1.

Common Events^* That Can Cause Less Than 25% of Delivered Gas to Return to the Ventilator and Generate “Disconnect” Alarms

1.Disconnection of the ventilator circuit

a.Circuit becomes detached from the patient's artificial airway

b.Pieces of the circuit become disconnected from each other

2.During a medical procedure, the ventilator is disconnected intentionally. However, the staff forget to ventilate the patient or forget to turn off the ventilator as alternative ventilation is being provided

3.Obstruction of the tubing connecting the patient to the ventilator

a.Condensed water filling the tubing

b.Kink or blockage in the tubing

c.Leak in the tubing

4.The patient's artificial airway comes out accidentally (extubation)

5.Leak around the artificial airway (cuff leak)

6.Obstruction of the patient's artificial airway

7.Leakage through the outside surface of the lung (bronchopleural fistula)

8.The patient takes multiple breaths from the ventilator in a row without exhaling between breaths; This generally occurs when the ventilator is delivering only small-sized breaths to the patient, but the patient is trying to get much larger breaths (breath-stacking or patient-ventilator dyssynchrony)

^*All these events are classified by the ventilator manufacturer as “ventilator disconnections.”