Effect of Diaphragmatic Breathing on Spirometric Parameters in Asthma Patients and Normal Individuals

Background: Prospective Intervention study to find out what effect does diaphragmatic breathing has on spirometric parameters in asthma patients and normal individuals. The main effect of diaphragmatic breathing in normal individuals is bronchodilation as observed in previous studies. In asthma patients it is observed that there is little or no effect. Some studies show that there is some amount of bronchoconstriction observed in a few asthma patients.

Materials and Methodology: 4 groups of 30 subjects each were taken asthma control and intervention and normal individual control and intervention. In the Asthma groups both males and females of 18- 65 years and mild to moderate controlled asthma were taken. In the normal groups males and females of 18-65 years and Asian race having no history of respiratory illness and/or smoking were taken. Baseline spirometry was taken for both intervention groups after which they were asked to do 4 diaphragmatic breaths in 1 minute and a repeat spirometry was done. This was followed by 40 diaphragmatic breaths over 10 minutes after which again a repeat spirometry was performed. Then they were given a 1 week protocol of diaphragmatic breathing exercise. A third spirometry was done after 1 week. For the control groups after a baseline spirometry a repeat was taken after 1 week.

Results: For Asthma intervention group there was a significant reduction in parameters after 4 diaphragmatic breaths over 1 minute and 40 diaphragmatic breaths over 10 minutes. Whereas, significant improvement in the parameters was observed in the Normal intervention group.For the asthma intervention group there was an increase in all the parameters after 1 week protocol of diaphragmatic breathing. However, only the value for FVC was statistically significant.For Normal intervention all parameters show significant improvement after 1 week protocol of diaphragmatic breathing.