Benefits of Respiratory Muscle Stretch Gymnastics in Chronic Respiratory Disease

Abstract

In-phase vibration, applied to the contracting chest wall respiratory muscles, has been shown to reduce dyspnea in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) . In the present study, respiratory muscle stretch gymnastics (RMSG) were developed to stretch the chest wall respiratory muscles during the contraction phase. Thirty-four patients with COPD consecutively performed four RMSG patterns, four times each. The dyspnea rating on a 150-mm visual analog scale, was 11.6±3.4 mm before RMSG and was signifi-cantly decreased to 6.2±2.2 mm (p<0.01) 5 minutes after RMSG. Arterial oxygen saturation, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, and pulse rate remained unchanged. Forced vital capacity and peak expiratory flow rate were significantly increased from 1807±141 ml to 1923±145 ml (p<0.01) and from 2.03±0.27 L/sec to 2.26±0.27 L/sec (p<0.05), respectively. Other spirometric values remained unchanged. Our results suggest that RMSG is a safe and effective physical conditioning method to improve pulmonary function and to decrease dyspnea at rest in patients with COPD.