Hope for patients with insidious diseases. In the Czech Republic, insurance companies do not contribute to a coughing assistant.
Although medicine has made great progress in recent years and can help in a wide range of cases of rare diseases, treatment is often financially burdensome and may not be available to all patients. The Our Lungs Foundation Fund organized a collection for the Bulovka University Hospital so that the pediatric department of this prominent hospital could purchase a cough assistant, which helps in a wide range of respiratory disease diagnoses.
The cough assistant is a special medical device that helps to change the pressure in the lungs during both inhalation and exhalation. The most common aim is to facilitate the coughing up of mucus for patients who, due to their illness, are not able to adequately get rid of mucus on their own. The device thus allows them to breathe in better.
The rapid change of pressure in the lungs facilitated by the device mimics a natural cough. The assistant mechanically aids the natural process in healthy people, which can, however, be problematic for a range of diseases.
Coughing Assistant, Neuromuscle and other Chronic Lung Diseases
The device was first deployed in 1953 and it was preceded by experimental use in anesthetized dogs, where it was shown to be an effective tool for extracting foreign bodies from the respiratory system. A serious reason for the use of the cough assistant is Motor Neuron Disease (MND).
Without realizing it, we control the most natural movements in our lives, from chewing, speaking or writing on paper, by neuromotor neurons. They send signals to the rest of the body on how to effectively complete their work. Very rarely this neuromuscular disease manifests in children and is caused by a neurodegenerative congenital defect. It is characterized by muscle weakness, which can reflect in controlling pulmonary functions.
The Parent Project study on the use of a cough assistant found that in the patients studied with neuromuscular disease, respiratory ability fell below 50% of the reference value needed for effective coughing and stated the need to use a cough assistant.
However, lung congestion can have a number of causes: Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Spinal muscular atrophy, Cystic fibrosis, COPD and chronic bronchitis, conditions after infections or surgeries, when the cough is weakened. Chronic lung diseases, according to estimates, affect up to 450,000 people in the Czech Republic, most of the affected people do not even know about the disease.
"A coughing assistant can help so that these patients do not have every cold complicated by pneumonia," explained the consequences of congestion due to inability to cough for LP-Life.cz by Dr. Renata Říhová.
A coughing assistant can save and prolong life
In addition to chronic, there can also be acute and its deployment is practical both in outpatient care and for patients who need hospitalization in bed.
"We have some children who have acute or chronic lung problems. They lead to, simply put, them having polluted respiratory tracts and lungs mainly due to increased amounts of mucus. This can be caused by inflammation, acute or chronic. A cough assist device is capable of helping in cleaning the respiratory tracts and shortening recovery time,"
commented on the possibilities of using a cough assist device in hospital care, the head of the pediatric department of Bulovka Hospital, Ivan Peychl.
"In specialized centers, such devices are capable of saving lives, prolonging the lives of patients with very serious diagnoses," Peychl added to the effectiveness of the device. Therefore, the Our Lungs Foundation is holding a public collection to purchase the device for the department where Ivan Peychl works. The amount that the fund needs to purchase the device is 136 756 CZK.
Health insurance does not cover the useful medical assistant known to science for decades. "Insurances support healthcare devices, but it's difficult for them to decide what to support more and what to support less. There, fairness is hard to find," commented primary doctor Peychl on the difficulties of funding all available treatments through the public insurance system.
"A device, a cough assistant, may help children by opening up the airways and may help them to clear mucus, to improve the overall condition of the children. Thanks to you, we can help children breathe more easily,"
said in the call of the collection Our Lungs by the doctor from the Department of Pediatric Pulmonology of the Bulovka Hospital, Renata Říhová.
Link to the collection Our Lungs
Sources: original text, own research, Our Lungs, apollohospital.cz, Project Partner, SeznamZprávy
