Lung Sounds as Indicators of Severity and Recovery of Lung Disease

• Status: Completed
• Trial end date: 2013-03-01
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

This study aims to assess the responsiveness to change of adventitious lung sounds (ALS) in patients with lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI).

Patients will be recruited from a central Hospital and their demographic and anthropometric data, lung sounds, lung function, breathlessness, oxygen saturation and chest HRCT scan will be collected within 24h of the first appointment. Then, patients will be randomly allocated to either conventional treatment or conventional treatment plus respiratory physiotherapy. Conventional treatment will consist on daily medical treatment prescribed by the physician. Respiratory physiotherapy will involve 9 sessions (3 times a week during 2 weeks) of breathing retraining and chest clearance techniques, exercises for thoracic mobility, expansion and flexibility, cardiorespiratory exercise training and education about the disease.

It is expected that ALS will be responsive to changes in patients' lung function after treatment. It is also expected that, by including a respiratory physiotherapy component in the treatment of patients with LRTI, they will express more improvements in a shorter period of time.

• Phase: N/A
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: No

Details

• Lead Sponsor: Aveiro University
• Collaborator: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• clinical diagnosis of LRTI according to the international guidelines (i.e., presence cough and at least one of the following symptoms: sputum, dyspnoea, wheezes or chest pain)

• ≥ 18 years old

• able to provide their own informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

• cognitive impairments

• inability to understand and co-operate

• bedridden or complete dependence on a wheelchair

• score >2 in the CURB criteria

• presence of severe comorbidities (e.g., past history of pulmonary lobectomy and current history of neoplasia, tuberculosis or other infectious disease)