I recently ran across this reference to the medical use of CPAP/BiPAP as Noninvasive ventilatory support for patients with a variety of breathing problems other than sleep apnea:
http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic3371.htm

Guidelines for this use of CPAP/BiPAP appear to be different in some interesting ways from the guidelines for their use in sleep apnea. Guidelines do appear to vary within this article depending upon the problem being addressed. I thought this might be of interest.

Best wishes,
Bill

My mother in law was on bipap while she was in the end stages of emphysema a few years ago. Until that time I had never even heard of one. It was about a year and a half later I first heard of cpap. I have since read of premature babies being put on cpap at low pressure. I saw a picture of the mask used by the preemies. It is not much larger than a nickle.

Brian