barrel trauma is an injury to lung tissue that results from over expansion and increased levels of pressure we created this video to cover the medical definition and provide a brief overview of this topic so if you're ready let's get into it as previously mentioned pulmonary barrel trauma occurs when too much air reaches the lungs and can result in alveolar rupture or injury this can occur in patients receiving mechanical ventilation when too much positive pressure is applied when this happens it can damage the structural integrity of the alveoli leading to serious medical conditions one of which being a pneumothorax other examples include pneumomediastinum pneumoperitoneum subcutaneous emphysema and a bronchopleural fistula as a respiratory therapist one thing to keep in mind for patients receiving mechanical ventilation is that once the peak pressure gets above 50 centimeters of water pressure then you need to start worrying about pulmonary barrel trauma as long as the peak pressure is below this threshold the patient is generally not considered to be at risk however each patient is different of course so this may not always be the case barrel trauma is also a potential hazard when using a bag mask device during manual ventilation that is because too much air can be squeezed from the bag into the patient's lungs however modern adult sized devices are now made to hold less than 2 000 milliliters of air which greatly reduces the risk of barrel trauma under these circumstances again for this video we just wanted to provide you with a brief overview of this topic we'll be breaking it down into much more detail in a real quick guys do me a huge favor and hit the like button it really helps support the channel and i greatly greatly appreciate it and while you're down there go ahead and click the subscribe button as well because we have a ton of other videos on our channel that i think you will enjoy just a quick reminder we are not doctors this video is for educational and informational purposes only and if you want to dive deeper and learn more about this topic you can go to respiratorytherapyzone.com where we have a ton of free study guides practice questions and other helpful resources i'll drop links to everything you need right below this video down in the description thank you so much for watching all the way to the end have a blessed day and as always real easy my friend