Basics of Airway and Oxygen Delivery Devices

Abstract

One of the greatest responsibilities in managing an airway is to maintain a continuously patent airway. Any loss of patency of the patient’s airway is critical, and if the ability to provide ventilatation is lost, brain damage can rapidly develop potentially lead to brain death. The definition of difficult airway is not standardized in the anesthesiology literature, but it has been described as the situation when “a conventionally trained anesthesiologist experiences difficulty with facemask ventilation of the upper airway, difficulty with tracheal intubation, or both”