UC to help people with critical breathing difficulties

UC collaborating with industry to help people with critical breathing difficulties

July 22, 2013

The University of Canterbury (UC) is partnering with Fisher and Paykel Healthcare to help people who have severe or critical breathing difficulties.

UC mechanical engineering expert Dr Mark Jermy has been collaborating on the company’s Optiflow high-flow humidified nasal cannula (device). Optiflow is used to support premature new-born babies, children and adults with long-term breathing difficulties or who are critically ill.

Optiflow heats the air to body temperature and humidifies it. This type of therapy is much more comfortable than face masks, and allows the wearer to talk, eat and drink, Dr Jermy says.

``Fisher and Paykel Healthcare wants to know if we can find a way to improve people’s breathing by increasing the wash-out of carbon dioxide.

``When we breathe in, there is a volume of oxygen-poor air sitting in our trachea (windpipe) and nasal cavity which we re-inhale into our lungs. If this volume can be replaced with oxygen-rich air from the therapy, the quantity of oxygen reaching our lungs is greater.

``UC mechanical engineering student Karla Dey used 3D printing to make plastic models of the trachea and nasal cavity, based on medical scan data. She set up a pump to drive air through the model, with the flow rate varying with time just as it does when we breathe.

``She added some carbon dioxide to the flow to simulate its production in the lungs and measured the concentration of carbon dioxide remaining in the airway, while applying Fisher & Paykel Healthcare’s Optiflow therapy at different flow rates., The results help explain the improved patient outcomes seen in hospitals with Optiflow,’’ Dr Jermy says.

Dey, who has used the same models to measure air pressure in the lungs, is supervised by Dr Jermy and was funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

A team of Auckland researchers is constructing computer models of the same flow. The combined experimental and computational approach yields more information than doing either one or the other, Dr Jermy says.

ENDS

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