Article

The patients with brain lesion have a high risk of pulmonary
complication due to restrictive pulmonary impairment. OBJECTIVE: To investigate
the effectiveness of active pulmonary rehabilitation on pulmonary functional
improvement in these patients. METHODS: Twnety-two patients of hemiplegia or
quadriplegia with brain lesion were recruited who had restrictive pulmonary
impairment. The patients were randomly assigned to an experimental group that
receive active pulmonary rehabilitation training and a control group without it.
The active pulmonary rehabilitation training is composed of air-stacking exercise
by ambu-bagging and functional electrical stimulation (FES) on phrenic nerve and
abdominal muscle. We examined respiration function test of all patients composed
of peak cough flow (PCF), pulmonary function test (PFT), diaphragmatic motion
evaluation and oxygen saturation (SaO2) at the beginning and 4 weeks after
treatment. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in pulmonary function
between experimental group and control group at the beginning. After 4 weeks
treatment, FVC and FEV1 of PFT, PCF, diaphragmatic motion, SaO2 have
significantly improved (p < 0.05) in experimental group, but no significant
changes were detected in control group. CONCLUSIONS: It is suggested that active
pulmonary rehabilitation with air-stacking exercise and FES would be useful to
improve pulmonary function in patients with brain lesion.

Langue : ANGLAIS