Anesthesia Machine

Excerpt

The modern anesthesia machine is a complex operating room instrument that incorporates a ventilator to optimize the delivery of inhaled anesthetics. The anesthesia machine has gradually evolved from simply a means to anesthetize and oxygenate a patient to an anesthesia workstation incorporating increasingly complex ventilator modes, end-tidal CO2 monitors, end-tidal anesthetic concentrations, minimal alveolar concentration estimators, and a means of monitoring vital signs. Despite all these innovations and new instruments added to the anesthesia machine, an understanding of the anesthesia machine is still a core component of the practice of anesthesiology.