Respiratory care for neuromuscular disease

PubMed, the Internet portal of biomedical and life sciences literature, indexed an interesting article, entitled “Recent advances in respiratory care for neuromuscular disease.” (Chest. 2006 Dec;130(6):1879-86). Author is Simonds AK, from the Royal Brompton Hospital, Sydney Street, London, UK. The impact of ventilatory support on the natural history of neuromuscular disease (NMD) has become clearer over the last 2 decades as techniques have been more widely applied. Noninvasive ventilation (NIV) allows some patients with nonprogressive pathology to live to nearly normal life expectancy, extends survival by many years in patients with other conditions (eg. DMD), and in those patients with rapidly deteriorating disease (eg. ALS). A growing number of children with NMD are surviving to adulthood with the aid of ventilatory support. In patients with many different neuromuscular conditions the most effective time to introduce NIV is when symptomatic sleep-disordered breathing develops. To access the full abstract of the article, click here.