Effectiveness of spirometry exercise along with active Cycle of breathing technique to improve lung volume of tetraplegic spinal cord injury patients.

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to explore the effectiveness of spirometry exercise along with active cycle of breathing technique to improve the lung volume (Inspiratory volume) of tetraplegic SCI patients attended at CRP. Objectives: To measure the lung volume before and after intervention and to compare the differences of lung volume before and after study of both groups. Methodology: The study was double-blinded Randomized Control Trail. At the beginning of the study, 16 complete tetraplegic SCI patients were selected from SCI unit of CRP (Savar). Among them 14 were randomly assigned for the study. Then again, 7 patients were randomly assigned to experimental group (use spirometry exercise along with active cycle of breathing technique and rest of the 7 patients to the control group (use only spirometry exercise) for this RCTs study. During the study, the participants practice active cycle breathing technique 4-5 repetitions and spirometry exercise 5 repetitions at a time with 30 sec interval for experimental group. Parametric independent“t” test was used to compare the results between two groups and paired “t” test was used within the group. Results: In experimental group there was a significant improvement in the lung volume. The mean improvement of lung volume in experimental group was 1085 ml and control group was 914 ml. Independent “t” test of lung volume scores between two groups showed value of 2.110 and p value is 0.5 (p<0.05), which indicates that the mean difference between two groups were not significant. Conclusion: This experimental study shows that spirometry exercise along with active cycle of breathing technique is no more effective than spirometry exercise alone for the improvement of lung volume in tetraplegic SCI patients between the two groups but it is effective within the experimental group. Key words: SCI, Tetraplegia, ACBT, Incentive Spirometer, Spirometry exercise, Lung volume.