changing ventilation target from flow to pressure can help with flow starvation

Flow starvation is a form of patient-ventilator dys-synchrony that occurs when a patient is demanding more flow than the ventilator provides. Visual inspection of the inspiratory waveforms is often sufficient to detect flow starvation. This form of dys-synchrony is most often seen in volume assist controlled ventilation because flow is controlled. The patient pulls flow from the circuit which drops the pressure in the system. Some ventilators may allow additional flow when the pressure drop in the circuit exceeds a predetermined amount, but the same scooping of the pressure-time curve is often seen.