Heimlich Maneuver® Saves Asthma Victims

The Heimlich Maneuver is known internationally as the lifesaving procedure for choking victims, and more recently has made headlines as the first lifesaving procedure to use to save drowning victims. Now, the Heimlich Maneuver helps benefit the growing number of asthma sufferers by relieving, even preventing, symptoms in a safe and cost-effective manner.

Asthma is a chronic lung disease most often diagnosed in childhood. But adult onset asthma cases are rising in this country. An estimated 17 million Americans have asthma and by 2020, asthma cases could rise to 29 million, or 1 in 14 Americans. Today, more than 5,000 people die each year from asthma attacks.

Asthma inhibits breathing by constricting the airway and by blocking it with mucus. These blockages trap air in the lungs and make it difficult or impossible to exhale. With the lungs full of trapped air, it is also impossible to inhale; therefore, 14 Americans die every day from asthma attacks, a third of them children.

The Heimlich Maneuver can help asthma sufferers in two ways. During acute asthma attacks, the Maneuver expels trapped air and mucous plugs, enabling sufferers to resume normal breathing and replenish their oxygen supply. As a preventative tool, the Maneuver, administered routinely as "mini-Maneuvers" helps asthma sufferers keep their airways clear and reduce the likelihood that acute attacks will occur. Using the Maneuver in this manner often eliminates or diminishes the need for anti-asthma medications which have serious, even fatal, side effects.

The rising costs of treating asthma is also cause for concern. Estimates of asthma's direct costs, including hospital care, medications and physician services, range from $1.3 to $5.1 billion annually. The indirect costs, which include lost work days and lost earnings, are estimated at $2.5 billion.

Henry Heimlich, M.D., creator of the procedure which bears his name, was inspired to test his Maneuver for asthma after a personal testimonial.

"During a conference in 1992, I met a woman who reported saving her sister during an asthma attack using the Heimlich Maneuver," Dr. Heimlich says. "Recognizing that it worked because asthma is, in essence, equivalent to choking, I began studying this use for the Maneuver."

The woman told Dr. Heimlich she had used the Maneuver in a panic because her sister's medications had failed to help her and there was not enough time to wait for emergency aid. The Heimlich Maneuver, she said, was the only lifesaving technique she knew.

The Heimlich Institute is continuing its work to create awareness of using the Heimlich Maneuver as a safe and low-cost preventative and symptom-relieving treatment for asthma.

Asthma statistics: The American Lung Association