Respiratory dysfunction in patients with stable COPD leads to diaphragmatic fatigue and failure when tested against small increases in inspiratory resistive load. This is an important issue to address as it can significantly impact both patient outlook as well as quality of life.

The study included in this blog post tested resistive respiratory muscle training (RMT) for improvements in respiratory muscle function, delayed fatigue and failure, as well as in improvements in activities of daily living.

Key Findings

• Respiratory dysfunction leads to diaphragmatic fatigue and failure under inspiratory overload.
• Resistive RMT greatly improved the activities of daily living of most of the participants, even allowing return to work.

Patient Impact

Resistive RMT effectively improves the quality of life and exercise capacity of people with COPD.

Study Results

In this ten patient study, nine felt that they were able to do much more in their daily living without getting short of breath. Three can now tend their own garden, an impossible task in the last four to five years before training. One has started working again after having received disablement pension for three years, and two have been able to leave their apartments for the first time in six and nine months respectively.

Resistive inspiratory muscle training (IMT) has a significant effect on respiratory muscle function, which leads to improvements in activities of daily living in patients with stable COPD. Targeted resistive IMT with a controlled training load has a similar efficacy to the more popularly used pressure threshold IMT and can be incorporated in the treatment of COPD patients. The targeted resistance device offers a less expensive and easily used treatment choice, and can lead to a significant increase in patient outlook as well as quality of life.

References

Anderson, JB et.al, Resistive Breathing Training in Severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, A Pilot Study. Resp. J resp. Dis (1979) 60, 151-156.