ACUTE HEMODYNAMIC RESPONSE TO ACAPELLA FOLLOWING ABDOMINAL SURGERY

Background: The effectiveness of standard chest physiotherapy (CPT) has been confirmed by many studies. Airway CPT is considered the base of physiotherapy and is characterized as “gold standard” of physiotherapy. Chest physiotherapy is a routinely used therapy to prevent post-operative pulmonary complications after abdominal surgery. There are different types of devices used to deliver PEP but one of the most commonly used is Acapella. It has more stable wave form and a wider range of PEP at low air flow. Objective: To find out the effect of hemodynamic response to acapella in abdominal surgery patients. Methodology: Study design is Quasi experimental, study type is pre-test - post-test type, and sampling method is convenient sampling, sample size is 36, study duration of 4 weeks, study setting in SRM medical college hospital research centre, Kattankulathur. Procedure: Acapella device was selected depending upon the patient’s ability to maintain an expiratory flow of 15 litres per minute. Patients were explained with complete procedure prior to examination. Mouthpiece was used during exhalation. Patients were asked to breath from diaphragm taking deep breath. Hold breath for 2-3 seconds. They were asked to Perform 10-20 PEP breaths and then asked to remove the mouthpiece and perform 2-3 ‘huffs’ coughs to raise secretions as needed. This was repeated 3- 4 times. Results: There is no significant improvement by using acapella in systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, arterial oxygen saturation rate. Conclusion: This study concludes that there was an increase in hemodynamic variables during the usage of acapella which return back to normal values in post 30 minutes of training. Thus, acapella is safe, effective to use for airway clearance. Key words: abdominal surgery, acapella, airway clearance, hemodynamics.