Almost the length of a subcompact car, the iron lung exerted a push-pull motion on the chest. Nicolas E. Walsh, MD, chairman of the department of rehabilitation medicine, said the machines would be unnecessary today. Crippling effects of confinement might have been eliminated. Contracted muscles became foreshortened and immobile with inactivity. The condition was common among acute polio patients.
Therapists now have better strategies for bracing weak limbs.
Polio patients experienced muscular pain, particularly during the early stages of de-innervation. TENS is thought to block pain signals coming from the muscles and conveyed to the brain. The patient carries a portable device about the size of a pack of cigarettes that emits low levels of electrical current. TENS is frequently used today for back pain and post-surgical pain. The treatment of choice in those days was to apply moist heat packs to help alleviate the pain.