[Prolonged artificial ventilation of the lungs in nervous system diseases]

Artificial ventilation of the lungs (AVL) has been carried out for many years in 25 patients with nervous diseases. Spontaneous respiration ceased because of peripheral neuron involvement in malignant myasthenia (5 cases), chronic polyneuropathy (1), paralysis of motor muscles after poliomyelitis (1), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (11), spinopontocerebellar atrophy (1), and because of the central neuron involvement in 5 patients, 3 of these with the apnea syndrome during sleeping caused by syringobulbomyelia, atrophic process in the cerebellum and stem, and Arnold-Chiari's syndrome, and 2 with an extensive infarction in the pons (deefferentiation or locked-in syndrome). AVL was the longest in patients with paralysis of the motor muscles following acute poliomyelitis (23 years) and with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (about 14 years). Prolonged AVL is possible in malignant myasthenia, but it may be discontinued during obligatory specific treatment. Specific features of many-year AVL, somatic functions and metabolic disorders associated with it are described.