The NAVA catheter can be used to monitor the neural drive of a patient. This is a key part of the NAVA technology intervention. NAVA monitoring does not 'do' anything to the patient BUT it may help you to look after the patient better.

It allows you to establish whether the patient is breathing or not, how hard the patient is breathing ('dyspnoea') and whether the patient breaths are synchronised with the ventilator control or pressure support breaths. The effect of changes in supportive care (eg sedation changes, airway changes, ventilatory support changes) on patient neural drive also become visible in real time.

The neural monitoring will automatically appear at the bottom of the ventilator screen but you should overlay onto the current yellow pressure-time curve by putting your finger on the top curve to bring up the overlay menu.

In health electrical activity of the diaphragm (Edi)  is low (10uV) because breathing is very efficient and in fact you only use about 5% of diaphragmatic power in normal breathing.  

Neural drive can be significantly impacted by levels of sedation, inspired oxygen and levels of ventilatory support. NAVA monitoring makes this visible for the first time. The lack of neural drive ('flat'signal) may be clinically appropriate and is an important piece of information in its own right. 

Importantly, neural drive can be continued to be monitored using the NAVA catheter even after extubation to either monitor the patient or support the optimal use of non-invasive ventilation, CPAP, or high flow. This can be done with the ventilator in 'standby'.