9.2: Ventilation to Correct Abnormal ABGs- Key Questions

Breathe Easy: RT Student Resource for Mechanical Ventilation · LibreTexts

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    From LibreTexts, under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, as the source states it; its equations are written in TeX, which the PDF shows typeset. This page at LibreTexts.

    After initiation of ventilation, ABGs are used to assess the effectiveness of the current settings. When approaching ventilation changes to fix an ABG, a clinician has to ask themselves six separate questions:

    1. What issues can I fix with ventilation?
    2. Which ventilation setting affects which ABG value?
    3. What are the problems with the blood gas (ABG interpretation comes in handy here), if any?
    4. What settings could I change to fix the problem?
    5. Which change(s) would be most correct for my patient?
    6. How much should I change my settings by?

    Questions 1 and 2 will help you when you are starting out, but once you master these concepts, you will no longer need to ask them every time. But Questions 3, 4, 5 and 6 are always asked for each mechanically ventilated patient.

    Over the next several pages, we will walk through each question in detail, with reference to an example patient, to look at how to put all your knowledge together and ventilate a patient effectively.

    A confident female doctor stands with hands on hips in a clinical setting, wearing a white coat and stethoscope.
    The capable clinician can put all the pieces together to achieve their goals for their ventilated patient. Photo by outsideclick, Pixabay Licence.

    “Ventilation to Correct Abnormal ABGs: Key Questions” from Basic Principles of Mechanical Ventilation by Melody Bishop, © Sault College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

    This page titled 9.2: Ventilation to Correct Abnormal ABGs- Key Questions was last modified on Fri, 16 Oct 2026 18:21:24 GMT and is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Yvonne Drasovean via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.