Physical Medicine Interventions for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, the Including Avoiding Invasive Airway Tubes

Mr. Arthur Abbonizia and wife Julie in 2017, married 30 years. Arthur was 51 years old with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) when he died from a non-respiratory condition, refusing to go to a hospital for the first time in 40 years. He was married 30 years, which is 6 years longer than myself and certainly deserves to be in the Guinness Book of Records for a man with DMD. It may soon be a record even for people without DMD. In a wheelchair at age 9, scoliosis surgery at 12, stomach tube placed as an outpatient in his 20s but never hospitalized for any respiratory difficulties despite using noninvasive ventilatory support since age 16, he is one of many of our DMD patients who married, but unlike some others, did not have children. January 2020 transcript of phone call: “My husband with Duchenne muscular dystrophy just died at age 51. Because 20 years ago you extubated him without a tracheostomy tube despite what all the doctors said down here, he lived with me, his wife, and two sons these 20 years. Had he been trached, (because in this state we were not eligible for public assistance for nursing and I work full time) he would have had to live in a nursing facility (to be suctioned). I can’t tell you how much gratitude I have for what you did so that my husband could live with his family and see his sons grow into adulthood all these 20 years”. John R. Bach, 2025 ISBN: 978-956-425-468-5