Researchers from the Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil evaluated the effectiveness of chest physiotherapy during the immediate postoperative period among patients who had elective upper abdominal surgery. (more…)

Normocapnic hyperpnea is a form of endurance training for respiratory muscles.

This study reports it’s useful in people with myasthenia gravis. (more…)

Medscape has published a review written by clinicians from around the US.

Let’s focus on 6 supportive care options for chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome, aka chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and myalgic encephalomyelitis. (more…)

Get out your MP3 player if you have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

As the researchers from the University of Hamburg state in their ivory tower way, “Auditory distraction might… serve as an intervention for the reduction of dyspnea [difficulty breathing] during exercise in this patient group.” (more…)

 Medscape has published a review.

Here’s a summary of CAM options. (more…)

People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) sometimes claim to experience immediate subjective benefit when they purse their lips while exhaling. It’s called pursed lips breathing and results in a positive expiratory pressure (PEP).

Are they wasting their breath? (more…)

Respiratory muscle strengthening programs are either inspiratory or expiratory and typically use handheld devices.

Dr. Christine Sapienza from the University of Florida in Gainesville tells us if it makes a difference. (more…)

Recommendations to modify breathing patterns are commonly given to people with ordinary stress and tension, as well as to patients with anxiety disorders.

This study by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California used physiological measures to document changes in respiration to examine the physiological and psychological effects of breathing instructions. (more…)

I was surprised to read it, but “one of the more common chronic pain syndromes in children is recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) — thought to affect 10% to 30% of all school-aged children.”

The results of this study show that “the response to guided imagery in.. children with RAP was rapid, sustained, clinically effective, and not associated with any apparent side effects.”

Let’s learn more.
(more…)

So, which is better, naturopathic care or standardized physiotherapy instruction? (more…)