Breathing patterns before and after breathing retraining for asthma
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Breathing pattern recordings before and after physiotherapy breathing retraining for asthma
IRAS ID
197059
Contact name
Rokhsaneh Tehrany
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Southampton
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 3 months, 6 days
Research summary
Over 50% of people with asthma continue to have poor symptom control despite taking medication. Many people with asthma choose to use various non-medical approaches to help control their condition. Of these, breathing exercises (such as physiotherapy breathing retraining) are one of the most common. There is now a convincing body of evidence that breathing retraining for people with asthma is effective in improving symptoms, general health and emotional well-being, and may be effective in reducing rescue bronchodilator medication usage. However, although we know breathing retraining works, we still know very little about how it works. Better understanding would allow us to refine the exercises and to identify those people most likely to benefit from them. Although there are now many published trials of the effectiveness of breathing retraining for asthma, we do not yet know if individual breathing pattern actually changes after breathing retraining sessions. The aim of this research is to record detailed breathing pattern information from 48 adults with asthma before and after a clinical physiotherapy breathing retraining programme. Participants will be recruited from the Respiratory Centre at Southampton General Hospital. Eligible people will be adults with a clinical diagnosis of asthma who have been referred for physiotherapy breathing retraining. Breathing patterns will be recorded noninvasively using Structured Light Plethysmography (SLP) - a contactless way of recording chest movements - over a maximum of three sessions, lasting about 45 minutes each. Recordings will be made on the same days as the physiotherapy breathing retraining sessions. Any changes in individuals breathing pattern from before to after training will be explored. This will be an exploratory, observational study to provide us with some of the information necessary to know if a larger, more definitive trial might be feasible.
REC name
South Central - Hampshire B Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/SC/0083
Date of REC Opinion
30 Mar 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion