Glossopharyngeal breathing: its application with a traumatic quadriplegic patient.

Quadriplegic individuals have compromised ventilatory capacities as measured by pulmonary function tests. This compromise may put them at increased risk for pulmonary complications. Glossopharyngeal breathing (GPB) was a technique commonly used in the 1950s with poliomyelitis patients to enhance their breathing capabilities. This same technique can be used with quadriplegic individuals to improve their forced vital capacity (FVC). Increasing quadriplegic individuals' ventilatory ability can help decrease the risk of pulmonary complications and therefore increase their independence.