Iron Lung Wards

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Specializes in ER.

I was watching PBS tonight, about the New York Cily Ballerina Tanaquil Le Clearq, who was struck down with Polio in 1956 at the height of her illustrious career.

She ended up in an iron lung in Copenhagen. This was the state of the art treatment at the time, a negative pressure respirator. Le Clearq partially recovered, but was wheelchair bound the rest of her life. She passed away in 2000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanaquil_LeClercq

Sadly, the entire crew had received the brand new polio vaccine immediately prior to departure to Europe, but Le Clearq had deferred claiming it might sap her of energy.

The iron lung wards were truly a remarkable period in nursing, and medical, history.

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Specializes in pediatrics; PICU; NICU.

Believe it or not, these are still in use. I took care of a 3 year old in her home about 10 years ago who had to be in an iron lung when she slept. It was an awesome learning experience for me.

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Specializes in Oncology.

Iron lungs have always fascinated and confused me. How did they work? Were they used for things other than polio, ie, spinal cord injuries? Asthma flares? Pneumonia? Were ventilators not in common use yet? Or was this considered superior to ventilators for this purpose? Was the patient kept in there 24/7? If so, how was basic care provided? I've tried researching some of this in the past with limited success.

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

The iron lung- and the cuirass - provide negative pressure ventilation. The major benefit is that it eliminates the risk of barotrauma. The other means of negative pressure ventilation is the phrenic nerve / diaphragmatic pacemaker. We've just started using the cuirass in our PICU. I've cared for phrenic nerve pacemaker patients in the past when I lived in Chicago. Never seen one since I moved to Indy in 1987.

The Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama has a historical display on iron lungs- I believe they had something to do with their invention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_pressure_ventilator

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I highly recommend the film The Sessions. It's about a poet who lives most hours of the day in an iron lung (due to polio complications) and his "sexual awakening". I don't recall the sex scenes being too explicit. The whole film is very tender and interesting.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sessions_(film)

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My grandmother graduated nursing school in 1947. She used to tell stories of a polio epidemic that hit sometime in the '50's. The hospital where she worked was so full of children in iron lungs that even the hallways were lined with patients...So glad we don't see that so much any more.

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I saw a documentary about a person from the polio epidemic that was still using their iron lung because it was more comfortable than the ventilator. I believe she died recently. Cannot recall clearly.

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Specializes in ER.
I saw a documentary about a person from the polio epidemic that was still using their iron lung because it was more comfortable than the ventilator. I believe she died recently. Cannot recall clearly.

Here's a fascinating story about one such person, perhaps the same to whom you refer.

60 years in an iron lung: US polio survivor worries about new global threat - NBC News

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Specializes in Acute care, Community Med, SANE, ASC.

From a book I read, I believe back in the day when the power went out folks had to hand pump the iron lung for people at home. I believe the neighbors used to come help the woman in the book I read. Can you imagine?

I believe some people could come out of theirs for periods of time and some people used theirs at night, sort of like going on the vent at night. The machines had windows that opened so body parts could be moved and care provided, linens changed, etc. I'm afraid I don't know much about it but there are probably still a few here in the U.S. Apparently there were at least 30 still in 2008.

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Specializes in ER.

Looking at photographs is so eerie. Vaccines are truly their own enemy. They work too well and so people forget the diseases themselves. Reading comments on the different images I saw in Google, people would comment about how their mom/dad rushed them to get the vaccine as soon as it was released. Now there are people who sit there and say that it's horrible that people vaccinate their children.

I didn't even know they had iron lung rooms. The images of four kids to one is so weird. Was it like a hyperbaric room chamber? How did the nurse breath in there to take care of the kids?

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