Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the effect of inspiratory muscle training (IMT) on inspiratory muscle strength, and quality of life in patients with congestive heart failure. Background: Inspiratory muscle training is a technique that is designed to improve pulmonary function, level of dyspnea, inspiratory muscle strength and endurance, limb blood flow, six minutes walking distance, exercise tolerance, as well as health related quality of life in congestive heart failure patients.In our study we used maximal inspiratory pressure as a measure of the strength of inspiratory muscles. Methods: Thirty male patients were randomly selected from Cairo university hospitals (critical care department), their ages ranged from 50 to 65 years. They were divided into two equal groups: study and control group ,fifteen patients for each group, each patient of the study group received both inspiratory muscles training for 30 min and routine chestphysical therapy for 15 min with frequency five sessions per week for one month, each patient of the control group received only routine chestphysical therapy for 15 min with frequency five sessions per week for one month, All patients are clinically and medically stable as they were on standard cardiac medications all over the study. Pre and post study maximal inspiratory pressure(PImax) and quality of life assessment was done for each patient of both groups. Results: Despite the homogeneity between the study and control groupsas regard age, weight, height, quality of life and in baseline PImax(P-Value=NS) and despite significant improvement in PImax post treatment compared to pre treatment values in both groups (P value=0.0001 for study group and 0.01 for control group) this improvement was significantly higher in the study group compared to the control group (54.93#xB1;11.17 vs 46.8#xB1;9.26 cmH2O respectively, Pvalue=0.03). Quality of life Scoresalso showed signific-antimprovement post treatment when compared to pre treatment values in both study and co