Did Modern Ventilators Replace the Iron Lung for Folks with Polio? (2024)

FAQs

What replaced the iron lung for polio patients? ›

Positive pressure ventilators work by blowing air into the patient's lungs via intubation through the airway; they were used for the first time in Blegdams Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark, during a polio outbreak in 1952. It proved a success and by 1953 it had superseded the iron lung throughout Europe.

The iron lung provided negative pressure ventilation which is very similar to the manner which we naturally breathe.

As polio case numbers have dropped, iron lungs have disappeared from use, with only a handful of people who were already in the devices, like Alexander, still using them. Nowadays, patients who need help to breathe are instead given modern ventilators, which don't require a person to be immobilized in a tube.

Rhythmic variations in air pressure, created by a bellows that can be operated electrically or manually, mimick the way the diaphragm and muscles of the chest normally do to move air into and out of the lungs. Essentially, the machine "breathes for" the patient.

Then directly afterwards then we had the bathing, and the iron lung would pull out. The attendants would have a tub that they would have sometimes in their hand but then would bring a stool over put the tub there, and they would go lower body first, always the chest, the arms, washcloth, not sponge.

While you're on a ventilator, your provider will try to keep you as awake as possible while ensuring you're calm and comfortable. They'll use medications as needed to keep you relaxed. It's not uncommon for you to be awake (conscious), but you might feel sleepy, confused or not fully aware of what's happening.

Then air was blown in, the pressure would cause the lungs to deflate — breathing out. "The rhythmic 'whoosh' of air from the iron lung became the reassuring sound of patients breathing," the museum says. These machines were typically only used by a patient for a few weeks or months until they could gradually recover.

Outlook. In most cases, post-polio syndrome life expectancy is good. PPS is rarely life-threatening, though symptoms can vary from mild to severe. If you have PPS, talk to your doctor about how to manage your condition.

After an emergency tracheostomy operation, he was unable to breathe without the iron lung machine that now encased his small body. When he died recently at the age of 78, Paul had spent more than seven decades using his iron lung, longer than anyone else in history.

Most patients only used the iron lung for a few weeks or months depending on the severity of the polio attack, but those left with their chest muscles permanently paralyzed by the disease faced a lifetime of confinement. In 1959, there were 1,200 people using iron lungs in the U.S., but by 2017, there were only three.

Are there any iron lung survivors? ›

Paul Richard Alexander (January 30, 1946 – March 11, 2024) was an American paralytic polio survivor, lawyer and writer. The last man to live in an iron lung, he contracted polio in 1952 at the age of six.

Polio is caused by 1 of 3 types of the poliovirus. It often spreads due to contact with infected feces. This often happens from poor handwashing. It can also happen from eating or drinking contaminated food or water.

But for patients dependent on them to breathe, the old iron lungs were gradually replaced with modern ventilators. Ventilators are used today in intensive care units and emergency wards rather than for polio victims.

Beginning in 1954, with help from the March of Dimes and a physical therapist named Mrs. Sullivan, Alexander taught himself glossopharyngeal breathing, which allowed him to leave the iron lung for gradually increasing periods of time.

Iron lungs saved thousands of children during polio epidemics, but were only meant to be used for short periods. Once vaccines were administered in the late 1950s, they largely disappeared, and other breathing devices were inserted directly into the throat became more commonplace.

Decades after polio, Martha is among the last to still rely on an iron lung to breathe. At least one other American was known to be relying on an iron lung in recent years: Martha Lillard, who contracted polio one year after Alexander.