Effects of airway occlusion on breathing muscle electromyogram signals, during isoflurane anaesthesia, with and without the effects of fentanyl and hypercapnia

Neuromuscular Blockade Improves Results in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: A Mechanism May Be Prevention of Expiratory Muscle Activity, Which Allows More Lung Expansion

“…In patients who are breathing spontaneously from a simple circuit with valves, active expiration can be convincingly shown by measuring airway pressure during transient occlusion of the expiratory pathway. If active expiration is present, this is seen as a plateau toward the end of the expiratory period ( 14 ). Dedicated techniques such as abdominal pressure measurement or abdominal muscle electromyography are seldom applied outside of research studies ( 1 ).…”