OBJECTIVE To assess the effectiveness of expiratory muscle training on the pulmonary function of spinal cord injured patients. DESIGN Randomized controlled trial. SETTING Acute inpatient rehabilitation hospital. PARTICIPANTS Patients (N=29, 22 men and 7 women) with recent traumatic, motor complete, spinal cord injury (SCI) at or above level T1 consecutively admitted to an SCI rehabilitati...

The inspiratory muscles, in particular, are characteristically overloaded in COPD plus CHF, with greater elastic and resistive work of breathing. Moreover, these muscles might be functionally weakened as ventilation increases during exercise in patients with COPD [2]. It has been postulated that fatiguing contractions would stimulate diaphragmatic thinly myelinated group III and unmyelinated gr...

BACKGROUND Specific respiratory muscle training can improve respiratory muscle function in patients with COPD, but the magnitude of improvement appears dependent on the magnitude of the training load. High training loads are difficult to achieve using conventional, constant loading techniques, but may be possible using interval-based training techniques. METHODS To assess the feasibility of h...

The effects of resistive loads applied at the mouth were compared to the effects of bronchospasm on ventilation, respiratory muscle force (occlusion pressure), and respiratory sensations in 6 normal and 11 asthmatic subjects breathing 100% O2. External resistive loads ranging from 0.65 to 13.33 cm H2O/liter per s were applied during both inspiration and expiration. Bronchospasm was induced by i...

Introduction Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery is associated with a decline in ventilatory muscle strength and lung function. Inspiratory training (IMT) based on anaerobic threshold (AT) has been used to minimize the impact of CABG these parameters, but long-term unknown. Objective To test hypothesis that AT-based IMT improves inspiratory function even six months after CABG. Method...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND In patients undergoing open cardiothoracic and upper abdominal surgery, postoperative pulmonary complications remain an important cause of postoperative morbidity and mortality, impacting upon hospital length of stay and health care resources. Adequate preoperative respiratory muscle strength may help protect against the development of postoperative pulmonary complicati...