An Analysis Of The Mechanical Work Of Breathing Based On A Respiratory Impedance Model

An analysis of mechanical work of breathing during inspiration is presented, based on calculation of ventilatory work obtained from experimental data of 3 normal subjets and 3 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, and from computer simulation of a non linear lumped model of respiratory,impedance. Using this model for normal and COPD subjects, elastic and dynamic (resistive) work was computed for different patterns in a wide range of breathing frequencies. These results were compared with experimental data. The use of this model may allow us to pronose different ventilatory patterns in patients with respiratory disease according to optimal ventilatory work.