News at UI Health

UI Health is the only hospital in Illinois and among the first few nationwide to use a new FDA-approved therapy to help patients discontinue long-term ventilator use sooner and resume independent breathing.

Patients who require mechanical ventilation for an extended period may experience weakening of the diaphragm, the primary muscle responsible for breathing, putting them at risk for additional complications. The new FDA-approved therapy, the Aeropace System, is a diaphragm stimulation therapy that uses temporary neurostimulation to activate the phrenic nerves, helping maintain diaphragm function while patients remain on a ventilator as part of a comprehensive critical care plan.

UI Health pulmonologists have been using the therapy as part of a global, multiyear clinical trial.

Dustin Fraidenburg, MD
Pulmonary

“For some critically ill patients, prolonged mechanical ventilation can make recovery significantly more challenging,” said Dr. Dustin Fraidenburg, a pulmonologist and critical care physician in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Sleep and Allergy at UI Health. “Adding this therapy gives our multidisciplinary critical care team another evidence-based option to help recover diaphragm function and support the transition back to independent breathing for appropriately selected patients.”

Intensive care patient requiring ventilation can often find it difficult to cease ventilator use — even after their illness subsides, Fraidenburg told Crain’s Chicago Business.

“There are a lot of reasons for that, but a big factor is that the diaphragm muscle weakens on ventilation, getting thin and atrophying fairly quickly,” he said.

The diaphragm can atrophy relatively quickly, Fraidenburg said, but also improves quickly with exercise. The Aeropace device sits in a blood vessel near the heart, and a series of electrodes that pass near the nerve that controls the diaphragm. With twice-daily stimulation, patients’ muscles can begin to build up the force needed to breathe on their own and come off ventilation. It received approval from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration in the fall of 2025 and UI Health began using it commercially in March.

For patients who are good candidates for the stimulation therapy the treatment can help avoid complications or infections associated with long-term ventilator use, such as pneumonia.

UI Health was among more than 40 hospitals worldwide to test out the Aeropace device in clinical trials that began in 2019.

According to Fraidenburg, about 200 patients a year at UI Health may fit the criteria for the new approach in a given year. Potential patients are assessed by UI Health’s multidisciplinary critical care team, which includes intensivists, respiratory therapists, nurses and other specialists who work together to develop individualized treatment plans for patients requiring advanced life support.

Visit the Lung Health Program at UI Health to learn more.