Inspiratory and Expiratory Muscle Strength Training for Persistent Dyspnea in Post-COVID-19

Sandra P. Morgan, Bini Thomas, Carmen S. Rodriguez, Ayesha Johnson and Theresa M. Beckie

Clinical Nursing Research, 2025, vol. 34, issue 8, 462-471

Abstract: COVID-19 can create a viral-induced myopathy resulting in dyspnea. Respiratory muscle strength training has recently been reported to reduce persistent dyspnea in individuals with post-COVID-19 symptomology. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of a 12-week home-based, respiratory muscle strength training program in reducing dyspnea and to determine its feasibility and acceptability. This single-group trial included adults > 4 weeks beyond the acute COVID illness. Participants were assessed in person at baseline, 6, and 12 weeks for dyspnea, pulmonary symptoms, quality of life, pulmonary function, and functional capacity. Participants received inspiratory and expiratory respiratory muscle strength trainers, diaries, weekly phone calls, and were shown how to perform the exercises using a return demonstration during the baseline appointment. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics and the Friedman test to evaluate changes over time. There was a significant reduction in dyspnea (2.04–1.39, p  = .005), pulmonary symptoms (17.6–11.7, p   95% and feasibility and acceptability scores were high. Home-based respiratory muscle strength training may be an effective, acceptable strategy that can be used as a standalone treatment to reduce persistent dyspnea in post-COVID-19 survivors. This study was pre-registered with Clinical Trials.gov [NCT06091280]. Clinical Trial URL/ClinicalTrials.gov PRS: Record Summary NCT06091280. IRB approval was provided by the University of South Florida (006272).

Keywords: post-COVID-19; respiratory muscle strength training; dyspnea; pulmonary symptoms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10547738251371244 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:clnure:v:34:y:2025:i:8:p:462-471

DOI: 10.1177/10547738251371244

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Clinical Nursing Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().