High-Tech Treatments for H1N1

This is the RotoProne, a machine used to treat patients with pulmonary problems. And now it’s being used more and more often to treat H1N1 patients. The RotoPrones are used in intensive care units for critically ill patients on ventilators who desperately need oxygen. Ever Delaney with KCI says the machine had been use on a few H1N1 patients before. But since the outbreak in April, it’s being used constantly now.

Here’s how it works. Patients are tightly strapped in. The machine pivots the patient face down for two reasons. First of all, being face down relieves all the pressure from your lungs enabling oxygen to fill in the little tiny sacs in your lungs to help you heal. The other thing that’s happening is the rocking back and forth motion, 62 degrees in either direction keeps all the fluid, all the phlegm from collection in your lungs.

It moves very, very slowly. And the patient is kept under heavy sedation in this position for four and a half days restoring the oxygen they need to survive. In San Antonio for the Doctors, I'm Delaine Mathieu, news for WOAI.