Question: Have you considered biphasic cuirass ventilation?

[thalictroides]

I wonder if biphasic cuirass ventilation might be a practical solution to this problem? These systems are external to the abdominal cavity and use both negative and positive air pressure to assist breathing (think wearable iron lung) http://www.ventusers.org/edu/Call-HaytekBCV.pdf

Benefits:

1. No risk of barotrauma
2. Can be administered with less medical knowledge
3. May be better for co2 retention issues
4. Air doesn't need to be humidified, filtered or purified.

Major downsides:

1. I feel like it could be challenging to get both negative and positive pressure from a cpap? I haven’t tried working with one yet.

2. Need to create the cuirass (abdominal shell).

[fireb0lt]

This form of ventilation requires much more power (and has been largely abandoned)