Diaphragm Pacing

Evaluation for Pacing Pacing Implementation Just for Physicians History of the Program The Team Making Life Easier Videos Patient Success Stories Monique Ponce & Family Mother & Advocate Johnny Youngwirth A Family Begins Pacing

Diaphragm pacing is a unique treatment used to provide chronic ventilatory support for selected children who require mechanical ventilation. 

As opposed to a traditional mechanical ventilator, diaphragm pacing uses the child’s own diaphragm as the “ventilator."  Electrodes are surgically implanted on the phrenic nerves, and these are stimulated by a small battery-operated transmitter outside the body, causing the diaphragm to contract and the child to take a breath. 

Diaphragm pacing can significantly enhance the quality of life for children diagnosed with congenital central hypoventilation syndrome as well as some children who have suffered a cervical spinal cord injury. 

Advantages of Pacing

Diaphragm pacing is an attractive treatment option for two reasons:

1. In those children who require ventilatory support only during sleep, there is the possibility of removing the tracheostomy. 
2. For those children who require full-time ventilatory support both awake and asleep, it permits them to be ventilated while participating in normal activities, not tethered to the short length of ventilator tubing. 

For many young patients, the freedom from the ventilator is wonderful, and the increased mobility or ability to remove the tracheostomy tube are huge improvements in their quality of life.  Notable improvements in the quality of life are made for adolescents who are considerably more affected by perceptions about being or looking different than their peers. 

For those patients who use pacing as their sole mode of ventilatory support during sleep,  pacing can improve the quality of life for family members who want to live more active lives and enjoy travelling or overnight stays away from their homes.  Equipment for mechanical ventilation is typically large, cumbersome, and complicated.  Packing up a ventilation system for a few nights away from home can be difficult. 

The diaphragm pacer system, on the other hand, is portable.  If the child does not have a tracheostomy, then tracheostomy supplies, suction equipment, etc., need not be brought with the child after pacing has been successfully implemented.