Ventilation Aid for Hypoxemic Respiratory Failure

Peep is not primarily designed to increase ventilation, but by improving compliance and also by improving gas exchange, the patient will have less effort to do during inspiration. And this is important because we know that patients with hypoxemic respiratory failure during prolonged sessions of non-invasive ventilation can progressively worsen. So it's also important to provide some degree of ventilation assist. The clinician has to decide whether the positive pressure given at the end expiration is sufficient or not. That's something where the astute clinician is so important at the bedside to decide of the settings and the type of apparatus.