[Mechanical home ventilation: indications for and application of nocturnal ventilation using nasal masks in chronic hypoventilation].

Mechanical ventilation at home has formerly been used mainly to treat respiratory failure after poliomyelitis. Nowadays this method has been refined such that insufflation is no longer necessary through a tracheostoma but via either a specially molded or a customized nose-mask. Ventilation occurs mainly at night for periodic relief of the respiratory musculature. Indications are restrictive ventilatory deficits such as kyphoscoliosis or the postthoracoplasty syndrome, slowly progressing neuromuscular diseases and sometimes traumatic tetraparesis. Evaluation and instruction of the patient take place in a pneumologic center in close cooperation with the cantonal leagues for pulmonary diseases and the family physician. Accordingly a collaboration of all social and medical institutions as well as the participation of close relatives are a prerequisite for a successful mechanical ventilation at home.