Effectiveness of Pre-operative Respiratory Muscle Training versus Conventional Treatment for Improving Post operative Pulmonary Health after Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the Effectiveness of Pre-operative Respiratory Muscle Training versus Conventional Treatment for Improving post-operative pulmonary health after Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery (CABG). METHODS: A Prospective Randomized clinical trial was performed on sixty patients who underwent elective CABG at Faisalabad Institute of Cardiology. At the time of admission all patients were subjected to 6-minutes’ walk test (6MWT) as baseline. The subjects were then divided into two groups. The Group-I was subjected to respiratory muscle training whereas the Group-2 received the routine preoperative care. The 6-minute walk test (6MWT) was then repeated a day before surgery (pre-operative) and before discharge (post-operatively). Duration of post-operative mechanical ventilation, oxygen therapy and hospital stay were also noted as outcome measures of this study. RESULTS: The pre-operative and post-operative readings showed that the patients in the interventional group performed better than the control group in their 6MWT with P-value of less than 0.05. Similarly the interventional group had shorter duration of mechanical ventilation, dependence on oxygen therapy and postoperative hospital stay as compared with the control group showing P-values below 0.05. CONCLUSION: The results showed that respiratory muscle training results in improved postoperative functional capacity and reduces of hospital stay.