re: ". . . anything and exciting out there in the field artificial respiration? . . ."

Well, ECMO (Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation - Wikipedia) is new but its use is unprecedented in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and the iron lung is old but I do not believe its use was ever contemplated in this context, its consideration would be new: indeed there may only be one individual left on an iron lung. re: the pacer, the main new observation is the large inclusion of 'ineligible' patients in the DiPALS and RespiStimALS studies, which report I continue working on. My outline is nearly perfected.