Improvement of hypoxemia in patients affected by Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) after a session of Controlled Breathing (CB)

PAH is characterized by impaired pulmonary gas exchange, with worsening of ventilation/perfusion ratio and increase in physiological dead space. In our Institute, we developed a rehabilitation program for PAH patients with aerobic, resistive and breathing exercises, including CB sessions. CB resulted useful in conditions characterized by a gas exchange impairment as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure and high altitude hypoxia, improving oxygenation and vagal activity and concomitantly reducing sympathoexcitation, with a favorable effect on symptoms and prognostic variables.Our purpose is to evaluate the possible effect of a CB session on the arterial blood gas analysis (ABGA) in PAH patients.Sixteen PAH patients (age 53±14.51;1 male) were enrolled. They were connected to a RESPeRATE device (InterCure Ltd, Lod, Israel) with headphones and a thoracic belt aimed at registering spontaneous respiratory activity. The software provides music with alternate high and low tones, for the progressive lowering of the respiratory rate up to a target of 6–7 breaths/min, with a duration of about 25–30 min for every daily session. An ABGA was performed pre and post CB session, with no changes in oxygen therapy, if present. ABGA data are presented in the table below. Only the difference in pO2 was statistically significant (p=0.05).This is the first study showing that CB daily session may represent a very easy, not expensive and well-tolerate method to impr...
Source: European Respiratory Journal - Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Rehabilitation and chronic care Source Type: research