Osteopathic manipulative treatment effectiveness in severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a pilot study

Few and contrastingly data are available about use of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Comparing the effects of the combination of pulmonary rehabilitation and OMT compared with pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) in patients with severely impaired COPD.

Rehabilitative pulmonary department.

Patients underwent exercise training, OMT, educational support and nutritional and psychological counselling.

Exercise capacity through 6 min walk test (6MWT--primary outcome) and pulmonary function test (secondary outcomes) were evaluated at the beginning and at the end of the training. Patients were randomly assigned to receive PR+soft manipulation (G1) or OMT+PR (G2) for 5 days/week for 4 weeks.

20 stable COPD patients (5 female--mean age, 63.8±5.1 years; FEV1 26.9±6.3% of predicted) referred for in-patient pulmonary rehabilitation were evaluated. Respect to the baseline, 6 MWT statistically improved in both group. In particular, G2 group gained 72.5±7.5 m (p=0.01) and G1 group 23.7±9.7 m. Between group comparison showed a difference of 48.8 m (95% CI: 17 to 80.6 m, p=0.04). Moreover, in G2 group we showed a decrease in residual volume (RV--from 4.4±1.5 l to 3.9±1.5 l, p=0.05). Between group comparison showed an important difference (-0.44 l; 95% CI: -0.26 to -0.62 l, p=0.001). Furthermore, only in G2 group we showed an increase in FEV1.

This study suggests that OMT+PR may improve exercise capacity and reduce RV in severely impaired COPD patients with respect to PR alone.