Assessment for Efficacy of Additional Breathing Exercises Over Improvement in Health Impairment Due to Asthma Assessed using St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire.

BACKGROUND

Breathing exercises have been described to be useful in asthma management by few researchers in the past.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the efficacy of breathing exercises (Pranayamas) added to regular optimal medications in asthma patients in improving health impairment using St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ).

METHODS

Sixty stable asthma patients (34 females) receiving optimal treatment at our institute for 3 months or more as per the Global Initiative for Asthma guidelines were included in the study. They performed seven breathing exercises under supervision at yoga center of our institute for 3 months in addition to their regular medications. SGRQ (1 month symptoms version) was used to assess the quality of life before and after breathing exercises intervention for following subsets: Symptom score, activity score, impact score, and total score to assess the efficacy of breathing exercises.

RESULTS

Of 60 asthma patients, 34 were females and 26 were males, and their mean age was 25.45 ± 5.41 years. Their baseline spirometric values were as follow: Forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV) - 2.492 ± 0.358 L and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) - 283.82 ± 51.12 L/min. The SGRQ scores after breathing exercises intervention decreased from 45.98 ± 5.61 to 38.78 ± 4.92 for symptom subset, from 15.45 ± 3.33 to 12.34 ± 2.39 for activity subset, from 17.95 ± 4.22 to 12.12 ± 3.82 for impact subset, and from 25.83 ± 8.31 to 19.20 ± 7.09 for total scores. All these reductions were statistically highly significant ( < 0.001). Decrease in symptoms, activity, and total SGRQ scores each was significantly correlated with FEV, FEV/forced vital capacity (FVC) ratio, and PEFR; decrease in impact score was significantly related only with FEV/FVC ratio.

CONCLUSIONS

Breathing exercises significantly decreased all component scores of SGRQ, signifying a global improvement in health impairment due to asthma; this improvement was in addition to that was achieved with optimal asthma therapy alone.