The reliability and responsiveness of components of breathing pattern

Abstract

Breathing pattern (BP) may have the potential to be used to monitor respiratory health and be used as an outcome measure for specific interventions designed to improve respiratory health. However, little published research has examined the reliability and responsiveness of BP. This research examines the reliability and responsiveness of specific components of BP in healthy adults and patients with asthma. It comprises three separate studies: The first study examines the test re-test reliability of BP at rest in both sitting and supine in 50 healthy individuals measured using Respiratory Inductive Plethysmography (RIP). The second study examines the responsiveness of BP before and during recovery from a 10minute moderate physical exercise stimulus in 43 healthy individuals recorded using Structured Light Plethysmography (SLP). The third study recorded BP in 5 participants with asthma using SLP before and after a breathing retraining intervention. Results were: 1) the BP components under examination demonstrated good relative reliability and no systematic bias with Bland-Altman analysis in both the sitting and supine positions. A slightly higher level of test re-test reliability was found for all components in the sitting position in comparison to the supine data. 2) thoracoabdominal motion (TAM) was not significantly changed post exercise in comparison to quiet breathing. Also, TAM responsiveness was not affected by gender. Moreover, there was low relationship between thoracoabdominal motion and timing components. 3) Breath-by-breath analysis did not find any consistency in changes in timing components or TAM following breathing retraining in all participants. Conclusion: This research has produced evidence that the studied components of BP are reliable in healthy adults. Regarding responsiveness, changes in TAM within individuals were observed, but the changes were not found to be significant and did not demonstrate any clear pattern in direction of change. However, the third study involved a small sample size. So, although the BP components were found to remain stable, it is too early to draw firm conclusions regarding the responsiveness.

More information

Identifiers

Catalogue record

Export record