Woman dies after life spent in iron lung

[Diagnostic]

For almost 60 years, Dianne Odell lived inside a 7-foot-long metal tube, unable to breathe outside it but determined not to let it destroy her spirit. 1 of 2 From her 750-pound iron lung, she got a high school diploma, took college courses and wrote a children's book about a "wishing star" named Blinky. "I've had a very good life, filled with love and family and faith," she said in 1994. "You can make life good, or you can make it bad." Odell, 61, died Wednesday when a power failure shut off electricity to the tube and stopped the pump drawing air into her lungs. Family members were unable to get an emergency generator working after a power failure knocked out electricity to the Odell family's residence near Jackson, about 80 miles northeast of Memphis, brother-in-law Will Beyer said. "We did everything we could do, but we couldn't keep her breathing," Beyer said. "Dianne had gotten a lot weaker over the past several months, and she just didn't have the strength to keep going." Read the full story here: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/05/28/iron.lung.death.ap/index.html

[Pharmacist]

How someone lives 60 years inside a tube!!!!

Is this the only way to keep a person alive with the same problem?!

Need an explanation?!!!

[Doctoor]

The answer is from Wikipedia

An iron lung is a large machine that enables a person to breathe when normal muscle control has been lost or the work of breathing exceeds the person's ability. It is a form of medical ventilator. Properly, it is called a negative pressure ventilator.

The person using the iron lung is placed into the central chamber, a cylindrical steel drum. A door allowing the head and neck to remain free is then closed, forming a sealed, air-tight compartment enclosing the rest of the person's body. Pumps that control airflow periodically decrease and increase the air pressure within the chamber, and particularly, on the chest. When the pressure falls below that within the lungs, the lungs expand and atmospheric pressure pushes air from outside the chamber in via the person's nose and airways to keep the lungs filled; when the pressure rises above that within the lungs, the reverse occurs, and air is expelled. In this manner, the iron lung mimics the physiologic action of breathing: by periodically altering intrathoracic pressure, it causes air to flow in and out of the lungs. The iron lung is a form of non-invasive therapy.
No, this is not the only way to keep a person alive, if he/she has respiratory muscles paralysis!!
Nowadays most patients with paralysis of the breathing muscles use modern mechanical ventilators that push air into the airway with positive pressure. These are generally efficacious and have the advantage of not restricting patients' movements or caregivers' ability to examine the patients as significantly as an iron lung does.

Thanks for asking about that

[Pharmacist]

I got it, thanks doctoor for your information.