[Complications and adverse effects of respiratory physiotherapy]

Physiotherapy of the chest is used to mobilize manually respiratory secretions and to increase the amount of tracheobronchial mucus cleared from the respiratory tract. Today, the term chest physiotherapy has expanded to include a wide variety of manual techniques. Complications of chest physiotherapy have seldom been reported, but when they occurred they were mild or moderately severe. Adverse effects associated with this type of treatment were present in a small proportion of the patients studied and generally of modest clinical significance. Recognizing the nature of the potential for complications and adverse effects of chest physiotherapy enables therapeutists to modify the treatment so that it can be administered safely to critically and chronically ill patients.