In its most basic form, a modern ventilator system consists of a compressible air reservoir, supplier of air and oxygen, a set of tubes and valves. If a turbine is used in the ventilator, the turbine pushes the air through the ventilating system into the patient’s body through a system of tubes and valves. Most Ventilators are also equipped with monitoring devices and alarm systems, in concern to pressure, the volume and the flow of the air. The modern ventilators are equipped with electronically controlled monitoring systems, which can adapt the pressure and the flow according to the needs of the patient. There are certain fine tuning settings that can be carried out on the ventilator to make the process more comfortable for the patient and also more tolerable. In the United States there are specialized respiratory therapists whose advice is taken before tuning the setting of the ventilator accordingly. Those patients who require breathing assistance only during the period of sleep or while resting; noninvasive methods are used to help the ventilators to work. They mainly employ the use of noninvasive nasal masks. The invasive methods for using this system includes intubation, usually used for long term dependence on ventilators, for this, the method used would be a tracheotomy cannula, this is more comfortable to administer than a larynx or nasal intubation.

The failure of the functioning of a mechanical ventilation system may result in death and therefore the system is classifies as being a life – critical system, and precautions such as the power supply to the equipment must be taken care of at all times. These are therefore designed to contain manual back up techniques so that no one – point of failure would obstruct the equipment from functioning completely. These are therefore fit with emergency back up gas tanks with compressed air or have back up batteries to provide adequate supply in case of a power failure.