Dinis-2013a

Conference proceedings article

Respiratory physiotherapy is a gold standard intervention for chronic respiratory conditions. However, its application in acute respiratory diseases (e.g., LRTI) is not well established. The objective and reliable measurement of adventitious lung sounds (ALS), such as wheezes, has the potential to contribute to respiratory physiotherapy evidence base. This paper reports on the implementation of reliable and published automatic wheeze and respiratory phase detectors to assess wheezing parameters pre/post respiratory physiotherapy treatment in patients with LRTI. Twenty patients with LRTI were randomly allocated to control group, which received standard medication treatment or experimental group, which received standard medication plus respiratory physiotherapy treatment. Respiratory sounds were recorded in seven chest locations. Wheeze parameters, namely occupation rate, main frequency, duration and type were obtained per respiratory phase. Wheeze occupation rate was statistically significant reduced in both groups following treatment (p<0.001). There was a greater reduction in wheeze occupation rate in the experimental group reaching statistical significance for the inspiratory phase (p=0.019). This promising result indicates the potential value of respiratory physiotherapy in LRTI. It also highlights the potential to use acoustic methods to establish respiratory physiotherapy efficacy.