The Peaceful Pill eHandbook Modification of CPAP and BiPAP Machines
The much-reported shortage of expensive active ventilation machines as the global pandemic spreads, has focused attention on the adaptation of the much cheaper CPAP and BiPAP machines to treat those with developing COVID pneumonia. BiPAP machines have been successfully adapted so that a measured volume of pre-humidified and oxygenated air can be delivered at a controlled pressure. If the sealing face mask is abandoned, and replaced by an endotracheal tube, a poor person’s ventilation can be achieved.
(This development has inspired Exit’s own initial research into the usefulness of such a modification to a CPAP machine in terms of an end of life device. In the Exit case, instead of oxygenated air being delivered at pressure, an inert gas such as nitrogen could be used. Because the nitrogen would be delivered at a positive pressure, a face mask could be used (because leakage would not be an issue). Details of the proposed modification process will be provided in future updates to the eHandbook.)
Ways to Speed up a COVID-19 Death
A COVID death from acute respiratory syndrome is unlikely to be particularly easy (or peaceful) as one fights to draw air into stiff, water-logged lungs. There is, interestingly, a number of drug options that could be employed to speed this dying process: to make it quicker and easier. To bring it closer to the ‘acute, short and not often painful’ description of Osler’s ‘old person’s friend’.