Effect of active pulmonary rehabilitation on pulmonary function in patients with brain lesion

The patients with brain lesion have a high risk of pulmonary complication due to restrictive pulmonary impairment.

To investigate the effectiveness of active pulmonary rehabilitation on pulmonary functional improvement in these patients.

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.

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.

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.