Mandatory Minute Volume Ventilation: Therapeutic Analysis

Mandatory Minute volume Ventilation or MMV is an advance mode commonly found in Dräger ventilators, including Evita XL ventilator. Some of the common names for MMV include Minimum Minute Ventilation (MMV), Augmented Minute Volume (AMV) and Extended Mandatory Minute Ventilation (EMMV). MMV can be categorized as volume controlled (VC)-IMV with adaptive and set-point targeting schemes. This mode guarantees the patient will receive a minimum minute volume based the set respiratory rate and tidal volume. Thus, the set breathing rate is the maximum number of mandatory breaths a patient can receive (Chatburn, Khatib, Mireles-Cabodevila, 2014). Furthermore, if the patient is able to breath spontaneously above the set rate and tidal volume, fewer mandatory breaths are delivered by the machine. The mandatory breaths are delivered will be machine triggered, and time cycled breaths (Mini Manual Brief …show more content…
Because the machine calculate whether the patient is generating adequate minute volume, not the rate or the tidal volume, it does not recognize any increase of respiratory rate and reduced tidal volume. This can be detrimental to the patient because increase in respiratory rate can increase the patient’s work of breathing which will make the respiratory muscles fatigue quickly. Increased work of breathing is not the outcome for patients who are qualified to be weaned from the ventilator and can increase the length of stay at the hospital. Although, the mode maintain minute volume at the set levels, it may not maintain alveolar ventilation to regulate patient’s PaCO2. In order to fix this problem, practitioners must set the low tidal volume alarm and high respiratory rate alarm appropriately to the patient’s needs. Furthermore, practitioners must be vigilant when using MMV to wean patients from initial full ventilatory