Interesting!!! Inventor of CPAP

[Slinky]

Scott Reed of Everton, WA has posted at sleepguide that HE is the inventor of CPAP. He says he has photos from 1973 or 1974 of a jury-rigged device which he submitted to the AART (at the time) journal, and their critique about his placement of the proximal pressure monitor. He says he is "one of those old dinosaurs" in Respiratory Therapy who took the Registry exam when there were oral exams as well as written. It was days of unlimited parts from disassembled equipment and some really fun times 'creating' things, and submitting ideas and articles to the national journals. He would like to think that some of their ideas contributed to the improved products we see on the market today.

Scott said when he finds it he will post his original photo of a prototype that did receive attention from the AART in the early 70's, which may or may not preceed work the Colin Sullivan did. He speculated Colin Sullivan saw the article and improved on it.

Scott went on to say he took parts from a fluidic ventilator, simple pressure guage and flowmeter, Bennett humidifier and anesthesia bag, and used a high pressure oxygen or air source rather than a compressor (as someone described the vacuum motor). One of the common complaints today is the noise from the exhalation valve (whisper swivel), which is nothing compared to a hoover motor. The complaints that he received back at that time was the location of the proximal pressure line which he had put at the patient side of the humidifier. Looking back, meeting the flow demands of some patients would be difficult without a venturi to multiply the flow. It was suggested (properly) to be at the patient interface (mask). Simple enough. He also commented the field of polysomnography probably had barely been dreamed of at that time. and that we've come a long way.

[Slinky]

Forgive me. I'm NOT trying to cram sleepguide down our throats here at cpaptalk but I had an early morning appointment today and just got home and was checking my e-mail, the forums, etc.

Mike from sleepguide is at a routine sub-committee meeting of the American Thoracic Society and had the opportunity to meet Colin Sullivan, often thought of as the inventor of PAP therapy. Even better Mike had the opportunity to converse w/Dr Sullivan at considerable length.

... Dr. Sullivan tells the story of how since there were so few patients, he had to use himself, his lab partners and their wives as guinea pigs for his crazy new idea to use positive airway pressure to splint open the airway. Once he had demonstrated that CPAP worked, more and more people stepped forward and advocated for themselves to get the machine. It was the patients then, just as it is the patients now, he said, who were their own advocates for getting their doctors to prescribe CPAP, and for improvements to be made to CPAP to make it more comfortable to use. He doesn't seem to give a hoot about medical protocol, procedure or propriety unless it is in the service of patients. ...

Mike took took many pictures, many of them of never-before seen materials from the invention of CPAP and provide a link to them. Colin Sullivan talked about his original research subjects: dogs; he also talked about his colleagues at the time. He showed pictures of his original notebooks for keeping track of all his findings regarding CPAP. These notebooks were off limits to him for years because of patent litigation, and this is his first time sharing them with the public. At the time, Sullivan's discovery was dismissed by the New England Journal of Medicine.

jnk supplied a link to an interview "Sleep Pioneer Remembers the Early Days of CPAP" at the ASAA website that was very interesting as well.

The original paper describing these first individuals treated with nasal CPAP was published in: Sullivan CE, Issa FG, Berthon-Jones M, Eves L. Reversal of obstructive sleep apnea by continuous positive airway pressure applied through the nares. Lancet. 1981;1:862-65.