Ventilator Settings Calculator

Tidal volume is calculated from ideal body weight (IBW), which this calculator derives from height alone -- actual body weight is not a term in that formula. This is intentional: lung volume scales with frame size (height), not with body fat or fluid retention, so using actual weight for an obese or edematous patient would produce a dangerously oversized tidal volume relative to their real lung capacity. Actual weight is still used elsewhere on this page: the Actual/Ideal Weight Ratio output shows how far a patient's real weight sits from their IBW, which is useful context even though it does not feed into the tidal-volume number.

Taller patients have a higher ideal body weight under the Devine formula, and since tidal volume here is set at 7 mL per kilogram of IBW, a taller patient's suggested tidal volume rises directly with height. This is the calculator's single strongest driver of the tidal volume figure -- gender shifts the IBW baseline by a fixed amount, but height is what moves it across most of its range.

No -- lung-protective ventilation is generally described as a 6-8 mL/kg IBW range rather than one fixed number, following the landmark 2000 ARDS Network trial (published in the New England Journal of Medicine) that found lower tidal volumes reduced mortality compared to older, higher-volume ventilation practices. Clinicians titrate within that range (and sometimes below it) based on plateau pressure, ARDS status, and patient response. This calculator uses 7 mL/kg as a reasonable starting midpoint, not a universal fixed target.

Only SIMV changes anything here: it lowers the suggested respiratory rate from 14 to 12 breaths per minute, because SIMV (synchronized intermittent mandatory ventilation) lets the patient trigger additional spontaneous breaths above the mandatory rate, so the mandatory rate is conventionally set a bit lower than in a fully controlled mode. Volume Control and Pressure Control return identical figures in this calculator, because tidal volume here is always computed as a fixed 7 mL/kg of ideal body weight. In real pressure-control ventilation tidal volume is not a set parameter at all -- it's the result of driving pressure, lung compliance, and airway resistance -- so treat this calculator's tidal volume figure in PC mode as a reference target to verify against the volume actually delivered, not a value to dial in directly.

No -- this calculator's suggested PEEP (5 cmH2O) and initial FiO2 (100%) are fixed starting values regardless of the patient inputs entered. They represent common initial settings for a newly intubated patient before titration against pulse oximetry and arterial blood gas results, not personalized calculations.