The Need for Breathing Training Techniques: The Elephant in the Heart Failure Cardiac Rehabilitation Room: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abeer Farghaly, Donna Fitzsimons, Judy Bradley, Magda Sedhom and Hady Atef ()
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Abeer Farghaly: Department of Physical Therapy for Cardiovascular/Respiratory Disorder & Geriatrics, Faculty of Physical Therapy, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt
Donna Fitzsimons: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University of Belfast, Belfast, UK
Judy Bradley: Wellcome Trust-Wolfson NI Clinical Research Facility, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK
Magda Sedhom: Basic Science Department, Faculty of Physical Therapy, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt
Hady Atef: Department of Physical Therapy for Cardiovascular/Respiratory Disorder & Geriatrics, Faculty of Physical Therapy, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 22, 1-13

Abstract: Background: Although solid evidence has indicated that respiratory symptoms are common amongst patients with chronic heart failure (CHF), state-of-the-art cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs do not typically include management strategies to address respiratory symptoms. This study investigated the effect of the addition of breathing exercises (BE) to the CR programs in CHF. Methods: In a two parallel-arm randomized controlled study (RCT), 40 middle-aged patients with CHF and respiratory symptoms were recruited and randomized into two equal groups ( n = 20); group (A): standard CR with BE and group (B): standard CR alone. Primary outcomes were respiratory parameters and secondary outcomes included cardiovascular and cardiopulmonary outcomes. All the participants attended a program of aerobic exercise (three sessions/week, 60–75% MHR, 45–55 min) for 12 weeks, plus educational, nutritional, and psychological counseling. Group (A) patients attended the same program together with BE using inspiratory muscle training (IMT) and breathing calisthenics (BC) (six sessions/week, 15–25 min) for the same duration. Results: There was a significant improvement in the respiratory outcomes, and most of the cardiovascular and cardiopulmonary outcomes in both groups with a greater change percentage in group A ( p < 0.05). Conclusions: These results indicate that the addition of BE to the CR programs in CHF is effective and is a “patient-centered” approach.

Keywords: breathing calisthenics; breathing training; cardiac rehabilitation; chronic heart failure; inspiratory muscle training (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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