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Published on: December 1, 2023
Correlation between voluntary cough and laryngeal cough reflex flows in patients with traumatic brain injury
Sang Chul Lee1, Seong-Woong Kang, Min Tae Kim
1Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Kwandong University College of Medicine, Gyunggi, South Korea.
Objective:
To correlate voluntary cough and laryngeal cough reflex (LCR) flows in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Design:
Cross-sectional study.
Setting:
University rehabilitation hospital.
Participants:
Patients with TBI (n=25) and healthy controls (n=48).
Interventions:
Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures:
Peak cough flows (PCFs) and LCR flows were measured using a peak flow meter at the oral-nasal interface. The largest value of 3 attempts was recorded for PCF and LCR, respectively. LCR was elicited by 20% solution of pharmaceutic-grade citric acid dissolved in sterile .15M NaCl solution that was inhaled from a nebulizer.
Results:
PCF was 447.4 ± 99.0 L/min in the control group and 211.7 ± 58.2 L/min in the patient group. LCR was 209.2 ± 63.8L/min in the control group and 170.0 ± 59.7 L/min in the patient group. Both PCF (P=.000) and LCR (P=.013) were significantly reduced in patients with TBI compared to that of the control group. LCR was strongly related to the PCF in both control (R=.645; P=.000) and patient (R=.711; P=.000) groups.
Conclusions:
As LCR can be measured as a numerical value and significantly correlates with PCF, LCR can be used to estimate cough ability of patients with TBI who cannot cooperate with PCF measurement.
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