Comparative Study Between Incentive Spirometry and Deep Breathing Exercises in COPD Patients

The causes of Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are smoke, tobacco and other pollutants. The disease can be treated and prevented completely. The indicators of COPD are respiratory breathing difficulty and persistent restriction in airflow. International guidelines recommend to perform spirometry for assessing COPD condition. For the patients with COPD, breathing exercise (BE) is an essential part for global pulmonary rehabilitation program. Since breathing exercises comes under type of respiratory training that can be performed at home, patients with COPD can perform them on their own. The study aimed to compare the effects of deep breathing exercises and incentive spirometry on pulmonary function in patients with COPD. This was a parallel-group randomized controlled trial. A total of 120 participants were randomly allocated (1:1 ratio). The study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of incentive spirometry (IS) and deep breathing exercises (DBE) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Pune. Total 120 participants were recruited. The participants were divided in two exercise groups of deep breathing and incentive spirometry. By the Week 8, pulmonary function had significantly improved in both the groups, with IS exhibiting gradual and long-lasting gains and DBE offering faster short-term advantages. As per this results, IS might be more successful in improving pulmonary function over the long term, while DBE might be more advantageous for early rehabilitation. In our study, the improvement for the IS group in FVC from the baseline was seen in all three follow-up groups which is similar to the study. In our sample FVC and FVE1 were significant for all the follow-ups in the deep breathing group rather than the incentive spirometry group which is similar to postoperative day 7, the patient’s functional ability was assessed using the 6-minute walk test (6MWT), and the results were compared across the three groups. This study found that the both Deep Breathing Exercises (DBE) and Incentive Spirometry (IS) significantly improved pulmonary function with respect to Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) and Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 s (FEV1) in COPD patients.