Care home BiPAP breathing aid for early stage intervention

A significant number of COVID-related deaths in the UK, EU and worldwide occur in care homes where elderly residents contract the disease but cannot be hospitalised due to a lack of capacity or poor expected clinical outcomes from later stage medical interventions such as invasive ventilation. Recent studies have shown that the application of bi-level positive airway pressure (BiPAP) respiratory support for patients at an early stage of influenza-type respiratory diseases reduces progression to ARDS for a significant proportion of patients.

A BiPAP device is similar to a user-operated continuous positive airway pressure device (e.g. a sleep apnea machine) but provides two pressure levels to reduce breathing effort and assist exhalation.

The objective of this project is to create a low cost BiPAP device suitable for deployment in UK care homes to reduce mortality due to COVID-19 infections during 2020, and to provide an effective early stage intervention to reduce mortality in subsequent annual flu seasons.