Development of a simulator for patient-ventilator interaction in non-invasive mask ventilation

There exists a large number of respiratory diseases for which the patient needs respiratory assistance. Moreover, there exists a variety of ventilator types, and every year new prototypes are developed. This fact presents an interest to patients because it can offer the most suitable and comfortable ventilator modes. However, each new prototype should be validated and must present a real original contribution compared to existing ventilators. Demonstrating the effectiveness of the ventilator as well as the used ventilatory modes necessitates the presence of several patients suffering from various pathologies. To overcome this constraint, it is very interesting to develop an object-oriented simulator capable of simulating: on one hand, different ventilator modes and on the other hand, different types of diseases. To achieve this simulator, mathematical models should be developed with a minimum of complexity. This is what we intend to achieve throughout this paper.