[Chronic hyperventilation syndrome. The role of respiratory re-training]

This study compares three non-pharmacological approaches to the chronic hyperventilation syndrome (CHS). Eighteen subjects were evaluated at the start of the study then one and 6 months after having received in a random fashion one of the following treatments: group I (teaching approach of one hour on the respiratory physiology of the CHS and on breathing techniques; n = 5); group II (same approach as in group I with breathing retraining of 8 sessions; n = 8); group III (same as group II with the addition of a modified Jacobson's progressive relaxation; n = 5). Whereas all three groups had a similar symptomatic score at the beginning of the study (although subjects of group III had in general higher scores and were symptomatic for a longer period), our results show that all subjects improved after 4 weeks, those in group II showing the greatest improvement (p < 0.05). This confirms the relevance of applied and repeated pedagogy in approaching subjects with the CHS.