Chest
Clinical InvestigationsASTHMASpecific Inspiratory Muscle Training in Patients With Mild Asthma With High Consumption of Inhaled β2-Agonists
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
Eighty-two patients, 46 men and 36 women, with mild, stable asthma (FEV1, > 80% of predicted normal values on at least two visits) attending an outpatient clinic were recruited for the study. All satisfied the American Thoracic Society definition of asthma, with symptoms of episodic wheezing, cough, and shortness of breath responding to bronchodilators and reversible airflow obstruction documented in at least one previous pulmonary function study.15 All subjects were in stable clinical
Results
Six patients had each recorded at least one decrease in the PEFR (to < 80% of their highest value) and were excluded from the study.
Following the 4-week run-in period, the remaining 76 subjects were separated into two groups: one group comprised 23 patients (15 men and 8 women) with a mean β2-agonist consumption of> 1 puff/d (defined as high consumers; mean ± SEM, 2.7 ± 0.4 puffs/d); the other group comprised 53 patients with a low meanβ 2-agonist consumption of ≤ 1 puff/d (mean± SEM, 0.4 ± 0.1
Discussion
In this study, we have shown that patients with mild asthma who are high β2-agonist consumers have higher perceptions of dyspnea than do normal consumers. In addition, SIMT was associated with a decrease in the perception of dyspnea in these high perceivers and a decrease in β2-agonist consumption. It is of interest that although the perception-of-dyspnea curve became similar to the curve of the normal consumers, the drop inβ 2-agonist consumption was, although significant, not to the level of
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