APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR MONITORING THE DEGREE OF INTEGRATION BETWEEN THE FUNCTIONS OF THE HEART AND THE LUNGS, AND THE THERAPEUTIC SUCCESS OF RESUSCITATIVE INTERVENTIONS
A method, system and apparatus for assessing the coupling between lungperfusion and ventilation in a patient whois mechanically ventilated or who is breathing spontaneously through aconventional artificial airway is provided. Embodiments ofthe apparatus comprise an adaptor configured to fit between the artificialairway and mechanical ventilator (or to attach to the freeend of the artificial airway in cases where the patient is breathingspontaneously), a measuring chamber in constant fluidcommu-nication with the adaptor via one or more measuring chamber samplingports, and a monitoring unit where data obtained fromtemperature and relative humidity sensors located in the measuring iscalibrated, sampled, logged and analyzed together withan-thropometric patient data provided by the operator in order to calculateand/or derive a novel cardio-pulmonary coupling indextermed "Qi" as described, and to enable ongoing diagnostic cardio-pulmonarymonitoring of a patient by comparing changes in thepatients Qi index during a monitoring interval. The Qi index is expressed innon-dimensional units, and is displayed relative to arange of "normal" values defined with reference to values that are commonlyobserved at rest in persons in good general healthand who generally match a given patient in gender, age and body size, and/oras a specific patients baseline values at rest or understress at the outset of a monitoring interval.
