Inspiratory Muscle Training Improves Function in Heart Failure Patients

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Mar 02 - Patients with heart failure and inspiratory muscle weakness benefit considerably from the use of an inspiratory muscle-training device, Brazilian researchers report.

Dr. Jorge P. Ribeiro of Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Allegre and colleagues note that although there is some evidence of the benefit of inspiratory training in heart failure patients, there have been no randomized trials.

The researchers therefore randomized 32 patients to a 12-week home-based program using the Threshold Inspiratory Muscle Training device (Healthscan) with a static maximal inspiratory pressure maintained at 30% or to a placebo program in which the participants had no inspiratory load.

Muscle training resulted in a 115% improvement in maximal inspiratory pressure, a 17% increase in peak oxygen uptake and an increase in the 6 minute walking test distance from a mean of 449 m to 550 m

Active treatment patients also experienced an improvement in recovery oxygen uptake and an increase in quality-of-life scores.

The researchers point out that although the training was not continued beyond 12 weeks, part of the effect on maximal inspiratory pressure and on quality of life was still maintained after 1 year.

"Together with the observations from other small trials," Dr. Ribeiro told Reuters Health, " our data indicate that inspiratory muscle training is a safe intervention that can be considered for the management of patients with chronic heart failure, particularly those with weakness in inspiratory muscles."

Given these findings, the team also concludes that it may be worth screening heart failure patients for inspiratory muscle weakness.

J Am Coll Cardiol 2006;47:757-763

posted by Smile Community @ 9:19 PM