[Mode of action and results of home assisted ventilation. Study by the Association of Aid to Respiratory Insufficient Patients of Basse-Normandie from 1976 to 1978 (author's transl)].

Since 1970, 168 patients, mostly of the obstructive type, received an apparatus of assisted ventilation at home, according to the degree of their hypoxia-hypercapnia, following one or several acute failures. Oral ventilation, at a daily minimum of 90 min, distributed in 4 to 8 sessions, was continued for variable duration, from 1 to 5 years. The results, analysed statistically for 40 subjects, show a blood-gas improvement greater in patients whose PaO2, PaCO2 and RV/TC ratio were initially lower.