Continuous airflow measurements during anesthesia monitoring, intensive care treatment, and in clinical and ambulatory environments provide important information for the assessment of cardiorespiratory and breathing circuit behavior. They have become indispensable in modern medicine. Ninety years after the first use of the iron lung, we are now dealing with mechanical ventilation systems that supply the patient with breathing gas by means of mechanical “air pumps.” This ventilation technique uses positive pressure to deliver air to a patient’s lungs. The increase of intelligent features incorporated into these ventilators allow them to automatically adapt to changes in lung function or patient breathing. Modern pressure-controlled or volume-controlled ventilation is therefore now more patient-oriented than ever. Since fewer and fewer ventilation modes are required due to the increase in device intelligence, medical ventilators have become less complex to operate.
While spontaneous respiration in invasively ventilated patients was previously suppressed by sedation to facilitate mechanical ventilation, the benefits of spontaneous ventilation nowadays are understood, and one targets to maintain it over as long a period as possible, often leading to better outcomes.