LAUSR

The information available on the processes of weaning from mechanical ventilation (MV) and extubation after severe neurological injury is scarce. The strategies used have been extrapolated from researches and protocols obtained from populations of patients without neurocritical conditions -situations that cannot be compared for several reasons. In the first place, most individuals with a brain injury are not ventilated because of a primary respiratory failure but because they show an altered state of consciousness due to their incapacity to keep their airways patent, meaning that the actual goal of artificial ventilation is to avoid fatal secondary damage factors such as hypoxemia, hypercapnia and hypocapnia. In the second place, neurocritical patients usually remain long periods of time