Implications for respiratory muscle training in patients with stroke-associated pneumonia: a meta-analysis.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effect of respiratory muscle training on improving lung function in patients with stroke-associated pneumonia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A systematic retrieval was conducted using the databases of the Cochrane Library, PubMed, the Web of Science, Embase, ProQuest, and others. Studies involving patients who received respiratory muscle training with/without a breathing trainer and those who adopted routine post-stroke rehabilitation training were included in the systematic review. The statistical analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 software.

RESULTS: Fourteen studies were included involving 850 patients with stroke. According to the results of the meta-analysis, compared with the control group, there were statistically significant differences in forced vital capacity (FVC) measurements (mean difference (MD) = 0.93, p  < 0.0001) and improvement values for FEV1/FVC (MD = 0.65, p  < 0.00001) in the experimental group. The FEV1 value was higher in the experimental group than in the control group (MD = 5.89, p  < 0.0001). Furthermore, respiratory muscle training was superior to routine rehabilitation training for improving the PImax of patients with stroke (MD = 9.20, p  < 0.0001). The patients had better respiratory tolerance after respiratory muscle training intervention (MD = 73.40, p  < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS: The implementation of respiratory muscle training can improve FVC and FEV lung function indicators, inspiratory muscle strength and the 6-min walk test results in patients with stroke.