This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Chronic HF symptoms relieved through device-guided respiratory modulation

Ekman I. Eur J Heart Fail. 2011;13:1000-1005.

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

Chronic HF patients with symptoms of dyspnea may experience relief of symptoms with use of device-guided respiratory modulation at home, according to results of a study conducted in Sweden.

During a 4-week period, 65 older patients were randomly assigned to twice-daily 20-minute sessions using a respiratory modulation device (n=30; RESPeRATE, InterCure Ltd.) to slow breathing rate while increasing exhalation time relative to inhalation time or randomly assigned to listen to music by CD to relax (n=35). By synchronizing respiratory movements with musical tones, patients were able to lower breathing rate while breathing movement was monitored with a belt-type sensor, according to the researchers.

Responders — patients in the respiratory modulation device group who had an average increase in exhalation and inhalation time of more than 0.2 and a reduction in average respiration rate during the 30 sessions — showed a reduction in breathlessness (–0.86 ± 0.23 units; P<.005) and improvement in NYHA functional class (–0.64 ± 0.20; P<.01) vs. non-responders. Between the respiratory modulation device group and the music group, there was no difference in self-reported symptoms or NYHA functional class from baseline to study end.

“Coronary HF is disabling and leads to decreased quality of life, frequent hospitalizations and poor survival,” Inger Ekman, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Gothenburg, said in a press release. “The patient’s subjective response to the condition is associated with symptoms that reflect physical aspects, as well as integrated aspects of lifestyle, anxiety, depression and expectations of the patient. The device-guided respiratory modulation provided by the RESPeRATE might have the potential to relieve symptoms of HF in outpatients by changing their breathing pattern.”

These data are consistent with data published in Circulation Heart Failure last year by Parati and colleagues, which showed that similar use of RESPeRATE at home demonstrated significant improvement in clinically relevant parameters for patients with HF and systolic dysfunction, left ventricular ejection fraction, and pulmonary pressure and function.

RESPeRATE is an FDA-cleared, CE-marked device indicated for the adjunctive treatment of hypertension. It has not been cleared for use in the treatment of HF in the United States.

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.

Follow CardiologyToday.com on Twitter.