These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Abdominal muscle training can enhance cough after spinal cord injury.
    Author: McBain RA, Boswell-Ruys CL, Lee BB, Gandevia SC, Butler JE.
    Journal: Neurorehabil Neural Repair; 2013; 27(9):834-43. PubMed ID: 23884017.
    Abstract:
    BACKGROUND: Respiratory complications in people with high-level spinal cord injury (SCI) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality, particularly because of a reduced ability to cough as a result of abdominal muscle paralysis. OBJECTIVE: . We investigated the effect of cough training combined with functional electrical stimulation (FES) over the abdominal muscles for 6 weeks to observe whether training could improve cough strength. METHODS: Fifteen SCI subjects (C4-T5) trained for 6 weeks, 5 days per week (5 sets of 10 coughs per day) in a randomized crossover design study. Subjects coughed voluntarily at the same time as a train of electrical stimulation was delivered over the abdominal muscles via posterolaterally positioned electrodes (50 Hz, 3 seconds). Measurements were made of esophageal (Pes) and gastric (Pga) expiratory pressures and the peak expiratory flow (PEFcough) produced at the 3 time points of before, during, and after the training. RESULTS: During voluntary coughs, FES cough stimulation improved Pga, Pes, and PEFcough acutely, 20-fold, 4-fold, and 50%, respectively. Six weeks of cough training significantly increased Pga (37.1 ± 2.0 to 46.5 ± 2.9 cm H2O), Pes (35.4 ± 2.7 to 48.1 ± 2.9 cm H2O), and PEFcough (3.1 ± 0.1 to 3.6 ± 0.1 L/s). Cough training also improved pressures and flow during voluntary unstimulated coughs. CONCLUSIONS: FES of abdominal muscles acutely increases mechanical output in coughing in high-level SCI subjects. Six weeks of cough training further increases gastric and esophageal cough pressures and expiratory cough flow during stimulated cough maneuvers.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]