Reservoir Humidifiers

The pri­ma­ry goal of humid­i­fy­ing the oxy­gen deliv­ered to patients is to pre­vent the dry­ing of mucous mem­branes, the for­ma­tion of thick and dif­fi­cult-to-remove secre­tions, and the devel­op­ment of mucos­al ulcers. Deliv­er­ing cold and dry med­ical gas­es (oxy­gen: 15°C, rel­a­tive humid­i­ty RH: 2%, absolute humid­i­ty AH: 0.05 mg/l) can cause mucos­al irri­ta­tion. 

Humid­i­fi­ca­tion of oxy­gen is indi­cat­ed for patients requir­ing high flow rates of oxy­gen, those expe­ri­enc­ing dis­com­fort due to dry­ness in the res­pi­ra­to­ry tract, and patients with thick and copi­ous secre­tions. Regard­ing oxy­gen ther­a­py acces­sories and flow rates, oxy­gen humid­i­fi­ca­tion is rec­om­mend­ed for nasal can­nu­la use at flows >1 l/min (new­borns), >2 l/min (chil­dren under 2 years), and >4 l/min (chil­dren over 2 years and adults). For oxy­gen masks, humid­i­fi­ca­tion is rec­om­mend­ed at flow rates >5 l/min. 

High-vol­ume neb­u­liz­ers (LVN) allow the addi­tion of water or saline par­ti­cles to the gas mix­ture in the form of aerosol par­ti­cles. The pur­pose of high-vol­ume neb­u­liza­tion is to alle­vi­ate inflam­ma­tion of the upper res­pi­ra­to­ry tract tis­sues, improve mucolyt­ic func­tions, and thin and facil­i­tate the removal of thick and dry secre­tions from the res­pi­ra­to­ry tract. This is sup­port­ed by avail­able guide­lines from med­ical soci­eties: “Humid­i­fi­ca­tion of oxy­gen is rec­om­mend­ed for all intu­bat­ed or tra­cheostomized patients. Humid­i­fy­ing and heat­ing oxy­gen can be ben­e­fi­cial for patients with tra­cheostomies and very copi­ous secre­tions” (Whit­ting­ton Health NHS guide­lines, 2015).

Skamex offers solu­tions for high-vol­ume neb­u­liza­tion, enabling the neb­u­liza­tion of both water and saline, and pro­vid­ing ther­a­py in both cold and warm mod­els. The avail­abil­i­ty of the warm ther­a­py mod­el also trans­lates to more effec­tive humidification—based on sci­en­tif­ic data, warm gas con­tains more mois­ture.