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Breathing and ventilation

Mechanical insufflation-exsufflation

The clinical name for what is usually called cough assist, a machine that pushes air in and then pulls it quickly back out.

What it means

Two words for two halves of the same cycle. Insufflation is the push in, exsufflation is the pull out, and doing them one after the other imitates a cough. You will almost always hear the plain name rather than this one. What the machine is and how it fits into daily life is covered on the cough assist card.

Why you might hear it

  • It appears in clinic letters, research papers and equipment paperwork.
  • Recognising it saves working out that it is the machine you already know.

People who may help

Where Compass goes into this

About this explanation

These are plain explanations of words you may come across, not advice about your own situation. Where a word matters to a decision, the question pages go into it properly, and your own team is the place to take it.