Acute Hypercapnic Respiratory Failure

NIV is a life-saving treatment for people with breathing failure and carbon dioxide (CO2) retention. It helps remove this waste gas from the lungs and reduces the effort needed to breathe. However, the standard masks used for NIV can become uncomfortable over time, which may lead patients to stop using them. Stopping treatment can be dangerous and may cause breathing problems to worsen. That's why finding devices that are more comfortable and possibly more effective is very important. This study aims to take a first step in that direction. This is the first study comparing new devices designed to help people with chronic CO2 buildup during breathing flare-ups. Devices tested include a new type of asymmetrical nasal cannula for high-flow oxygen therapy and a new mask called OptiNIV, which has a comfortable design that may help remove more CO2. These devices will be compared to standard NIV masks currently used in hospitals. Outcome of interests include their effects on the effort needed to breathe, on how much CO2 is cleared, and on how comfortable they are.

The high frequency of unplanned hospital visits of patients with chronic hypercapnic respiratory failure (e.g., chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, obesity-related hypoventilation) constitutes a major public health problem. Most patients admitted for acute exacerbations (AHRF) have additional comorbidities, especially sleep disorders. Often untreated, sleep disorders contribute to multiple readmissions (≈70% at one year) and increase readmission costs. The investigators will: 1) identify these patients early during unplanned hospital admissions and perform sleep studies using EEG and oximetry before hospital discharge and two months after to compare sleep abnormalities in the two moments; 2) investigate the association between sleep abnormalities in the two sleep studies with clinical outcomes (1-year readmission and death); 3) investigate the acute effects of high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) to treat sleep abnormalities as a simplified alternative. The investigators anticipate sleep abnormalities during the hospital stay and two months after discharge will be associated with poor clinical outcomes (readmission, death) and HFNC to acutely reduce sleep abnormalities.

Chronic obstructive lung disease is a disabling disease that affects people usually after several years of smoke tobacco exposure and affects millions of patients worldwide. The disease is marked by multiples episode of worsening, termed exacerbations necessitating frequent hospitalizations. During these exacerbations, patients present breathless, and in the most severe cases, are admitted to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for respiratory assistance. Currently, respiratory assistance is provided by a ventilator via a oronasal mask (referred to non-invasive ventilation, NIV), that helps patients to cope with their breathless. The mask is not always well tolerated and the ventilator sessions are delivered intermittently. In the past decade, a new technique that provides air-oxygen with high flow has been developed. This technique, called High Flow via Nasal Cannula (HFNC) can deliver from 21 to 100% heated and humidified air-oxygen at a high flow of gas via simple nasal cannula. Recent studies have shown that the technique is very efficient to treat patients presenting with acute respiratory failure who don't have any underlying chronic pulmonary disease. Whether the technique would be also efficient in patients with COLD presenting with severe exacerbations has not yet been demonstrated. Since HFNC does not require any mask, it is thought that the comfort of the patient would be much better in comparison to NIV and could potentially help to treat many patients with the disease. The objective of the present study is to study the physiological effect of HFNC as compared to NIV in patients with severe exacerbations of COPD and to show that it is non-inferior to NIV.

While most studies in the medical literature that indicate "music" as an intervention may recognize its impact and capacity to decrease pain perception, anxiety, and/or its role in the regulation of cardiac and respiratory function in ICU patients, no identifiable studies have implemented entrained live music therapy protocols into clinical trials. Music therapy treatment is a non-pharmacological intervention that is individually tailored to the patient's needs and focuses on the assessment and intervention of a specific music application that is provided by a certified music therapist. Entrained music therapy focuses on a dynamic interaction between the patient and music therapist in which the music therapist attempts to promote relaxation and comfort through the patient's identified Song of Kin (SOK). This study measures the effects of live music therapy entrained to the vital signs of adult patients on duration of mechanical ventilation.

The goal of this pilot randomized cross-over study is to compare the effect of a full-face mask with expiratory washout to a conventional full face mask on non-invasive ventilation (NIV) in patients with acute hypercapnic, and acute hypoxemic, respiratory failure. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Does a mask with expiratory washout improve minute ventilation in patients using non-invasive ventilation compared with a conventional single-limb NIV mask * How does a mask with expiratory washout affect respiratory variables compared with a dual-limb NIV mask. Participants already prescribed NIV will undergo 3 arms of the investigation in a randomized order: * Single-limb NIV with investigation mask (with expiratory washout) * Single-limb NIV with conventional mask * Dual-limb NIV with conventional mask

High flow nasal oxygen therapy (HFNO) is an established modality in the supportive treatment of patients suffering from acute hypoxemic respiratory failure. The high humidified gas flow supports patient's work of breathing, reduces dead space ventilation, and improves functional residual capacity while using an unobtrusive patient's face interface \[Mauri et al, 2017; Möller et al, 2017\]. As hyperoxia is considered not desirable \[Barbateskovic et al, 2019\] during any oxygen therapy, the inspired O2 concentration is usually adapted to a pre-set SpO2 target-range of 92-96% in patients without hypercapnia risk, and of 88-92% if a risk of hypercapnia is present \[O'Driscoll et al, 2017; Beasley et al, 2015\]. In most institutions, the standard of care is to manually adapt the FiO2, although patients frequently have a SpO2 value outside the target range. A new closed loop oxygen controller designed for HFNO was recently developed (Hamilton Medical, Bonaduz, Switzerland). The clinician sets SpO2 targets, and the software option adjusts FiO2 to keep SpO2 within the target ranges. The software option offers some alarms on low and high SpO2 and high FiO2. Given the capability, on the one hand, to quickly increase FiO2 in patients developing sudden and profound hypoxia, and, on the other hand, of automatically preventing hyperoxia in patients improving their oxygenation, such a system could be particularly useful in patients treated with HFNO. A short-term (4 hours vs 4 hours) crossover study indicated that this technique improves the time spent within SpO2 pre-defined target for ICU patients receiving high-flow nasal oxygen therapy \[Roca et al, 2022\]. Due to its simplicity, HFNO is increasingly used outside the ICU during transport and in the Emergency Room (ER). This environment poses specific challenges, as patients may deteriorate very quickly and depending on patient's flow, healthcare providers can easily be overwhelmed. We thus propose to evaluate closed loop controlled HFNO in ER patients. The hypothesis of the study is that closed loop oxygen control increases the time spent within clinically targeted SpO2 ranges and decreases the time spent outside clinical target SpO2 ranges as compared to manual oxygen control in ER patients treated with HFNO.

In this trial investigators will explore if a protocolized rotational use of interfaces i.e., masks, during noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (NPPV) compared to standard care is clinically effective and cost-effective in reducing the incidence of pressure sores in patients with hypercapnic acute respiratory failure (AHRF) treated continuously i.e., for more than 24 hours, with NPPV (to avoid intubation, as alternative to invasive ventilation and after early extubation and weaning).