Pocket mask adaptation

[Gerrard Farrell]

• This post is about a possible adaptation to the type of pocket masks currently used in CPR . It maybe a useful idea or it may be impractical and not a good idea at all . It is not up to me to evaluate the idea and it would need to be thoroughly tested by those qualified in such matters before any use could be made of the idea .I am not suggesting that existing pocket masks should be altered in any way or that they do not do the job perfectly well with their present design . This idea is about a possible improvement which might be useful in for example , low light ,outdoor conditions .
  
  POCKET MASK
  
  Currently the method of giving rescue breaths involves tilting the patients head back if possible ,holding the mask on a patients face and lifting the jaw . My understanding on is that even in experienced hands this maneuver can lead to the closure of the mouth and so the rise and fall of the chest must be watched for .
  In a mouth breathing patient with obstructed nasal passages closing the mouth during CPR could be disastrous .
  The idea to help prevent mouth closure during tilt and lift would involve attaching a piece of highly perforated and flexible tubing to the inside of the mask in the area over the mouth . The tubing would extend beyond the lips and teeth but not much further and would be adaptable to entubating devices .
  The highly perforated nature of the tubing would ensure complete diffusion of gases between the lumen of the tubing and the gases inside the rest of the mask allowing homogenicity of gaseous partial pressures and overall gaseous pressure between the two zones . The tubing would make inadverted mouth closure very unlikely .
  That's the idea and I would welcome any comments .
  Please don't try this out without expert advice and supervision and even then only after proper trials have been carried out .
  
  Kind regards
  
  Gerry
  
  NB If the tubing were flexible but of solid cross section or flexible ,hollow but with no perforations then the tubing and hence the mask would not be adaptable to an entubating device by, for example , fitting inside the lumen of the entubating device . Instead the tubing might simply get in the way and cause obstruction .
  
  Gerrard Farrell
  
  Glasgow
  scotfoot, Friday at 4:36 PM
  #1