Article

OBJECTIVE: To examine the effects of 4-month of respiratory muscle training on
pulmonary and swallowing function, exercise capacity and dyspnoea in manifest
patients with Huntington's disease. DESIGN: A pilot randomised controlled trial.
SETTING: Home based training program. PARTICIPANTS: Eighteen manifest
Huntington's disease patients with a positive genetic test and clinically
verified disease expression, were randomly assigned to control group (n=9) and
training group (n=9). INTERVENTION: Both groups received home-based inspiratory
(5 sets of 5 repetitions) and expiratory (5 sets of 5 repetitions) muscle
training 6 times a week for 4 months. The control group used a fixed resistance
of 9 centimeters of water, and the training group used a progressively increased
resistance from 30% to 75% of each patient's maximum respiratory pressure. MAIN
MEASURES: Spirometric indices, maximum inspiratory pressure, maximum expiratory
pressure, six minutes walk test, dyspnoea, water-swallowing test and swallow
quality of life questionnaire were assessed before, at 2 and 4 months after
training. RESULTS: The magnitude of increases in maximum inspiratory (d=2.9) and
expiratory pressures (d=1.5), forced vital capacity (d=0.8), forced expiratory
volume in 1 second (d=0.9) and peak expiratory flow (d=0.8) was substantially
greater for the training group in comparison to the control group. Changes in
swallowing function, dyspnoea and exercise capacity were small (d</=0.5) for both
groups without substantial differences between groups. CONCLUSIONS: A home-based
respiratory muscle training program appeared to be beneficial to improve
pulmonary function in manifest Huntington's disease patients but provided small
effects on swallowing function, dyspnoea and exercise capacity.
CI - (c) The Author(s) 2015.

Langue : ANGLAIS