Other Uses for the Iron Lung
Although the iron lung is remembered most notably from the days of the polio epidemic, it has continued to receive occasional use after the development of the Salk and Sabin vaccines.
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- Instructional slides of a staff member being put into the iron lung. Courtesy of Suzi Burns, RN.
From the sixties onward, most respiratory care patients were treated with new techniques that utilized improved endotracheal or tracheostomy tubes, but some survivors of earlier polio epidemics, as well as other intensive medical cases, still made use of the iron lung. Lifecare Services, Inc., reported that as of January 1985, approximately 300 iron lungs were still being used in the country.26 At the University of Virginia Hospital, the iron lung was used as recently as three years ago in the Intensive Care Unit for cases in which patients needed respiratory assistance due to neuromuscular diseases but refused the permanence of invasive methods.27