ROME – A program of inspiratory muscle training combined with standard muscular rehabilitation exercise significantly improved lung function in patients with ankylosing spondylitis.
Compared to patients who engaged only in the rehabilitation exercise, the combination program resulted in significantly greater gains in both physical and physiologic measures of pulmonary function, Dr. Razvan Dragoi reported at the annual meeting of the European League Against Rheumatism.
“We assessed resting pulmonary function and ran cardiopulmonary exercise tests at the start and end of the study and saw significant improvements across all measures of lung function in the group undergoing inspiratory muscle training,” said Dr. Dragoi of the Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Romania. “When you compare these findings with the conventional exercise group – which saw small, nonsignificant improvements – it’s clear that adding inspiratory training to an exercise program has clear health benefits for patients.”
The study randomized 54 patients with ankylosing spondylitis to two exercise interventions, Dr. Dragoi said in an interview. “Both groups in our study performed a weekly group session for about 40 minutes per session, managed by a physiotherapist. They were then provided with simple, step-by-step written instructions with illustrations in order to practice these exercises at home,” 5 days each week, for 40 minutes at a time.
The program consisted of 20 exercises: motion and flexibility exercises of the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine; stretching of the hamstring muscles, erector spine muscle, and shoulder muscles; abdominal and diaphragm breathing exercises, and chest expansion exercises. The patients were required to achieve a level of perceived exertion of “somewhat hard.”
They also completed an exercise training diary in order to assess their compliance with the recommended program.
The investigational group, however, added another level of training. “In addition to the conventional exercise training, patients performed supervised inspiratory muscle training, three times a week, totaling 24 sessions. This used a real-time computer-assisted device (Trainair, Project Electronics Limited, United Kingdom).”
The training load was based on 80% of the patient’s sustained maximum inspiratory pressure. The patients started by performing six loaded inspiration with a 60-second rest period between each inspiration. This sequence of six exercises continued with 45-, 30-, and 15-, 10- and 5-second rest periods up to 36 loaded inspirations. The training session duration was about 30 minutes.
The study assessed a number of physical and physiologic endpoints, including chest expansion, forced vital capacity and expiratory volumes, and measures of oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange.
Only one outcome – chest expansion – improved significantly in the control arm, increasing from 69 cm at baseline to 72 cm by 8 weeks. In the intensified arm, however, every outcome improved significantly, including chest expansion (66 cm-94 cm), forced vital capacity (78.6%-82.7%), forced expiratory volume (71%-74.6%), and peak oxygen uptake (1.7-2 L/min). The measures of oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange also showed significant improvements.
Dr. Dragoi didn’t follow the patients to assess how long the exercise-related improvements lasted, but like all exercise, he said, the program would have to be repeated to maintain them. “We do have a follow-up in mind, and will be conducting that soon, but we do not know how many patients will be available for the follow-up.”
He had no financial disclosures.
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