rocking bed

Other respiratory aids, such as the "rocking bed" were used in patients with less critical breathing difficulties.

In a study at Montefiore, researchers were not able to show benefits for adult insomniacs who used a rocking bed.

"If you can't sleep because you have restless leg syndrome, because you stop breathing or because you are depressed, a rocking bed won't help," he said.

Other forms of noninvasive ventilators, also used widely for polio patients, include Biphasic Cuirass Ventilation, the rocking bed, and rather primitive positive pressure machines.

Among the therapies on display - most of them outside conventional medicine - were gently rocking beds for relaxation, music that can produce natural opiates in the brain, and bee glue used as antiseptic.

The results, published in Cell Biology, showed the rocking bed increased slow oscillations and bursts of activity in the brain known as sleep spindles, which are associated with deep sleep and memory consolidation.

If only they had tried a little harder, surely they would have made it from iron lung to rocking bed, from bed to braces, from braces to crutches, from crutches to the 100-yard dash.

The [respiratory rehabilitation] centers, where individuals with severe polio in need of rocking beds and iron lungs were sent, provided superb medical and psychological rehabilitation but, until 1953, most of the permanent respirator users seemed doomed to remain in the hospital for the rest of their lives.