The hydrotherapy in the treatment of patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Abstract

The Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a serious, disabling disease, presenting the pulmonary function test with abnormalities in the expiratory flow. Under this denomination, it comprises the chronic bronchitis and pulmonary emphysema. The hydrotherapy involves the physical therapy with aquatic exercises and has being used because it is a pleasant activity with positive results. The aim of this exploratory study was to compare the performance of the patients with COPD treated with hydrotherapy associated to pulmonary rehabilitation with those treated only with pulmonary rehabilitation, being held in the cardiopulmonary rehabilitation center of Messejana Hospital, in Fortaleza - Ceará. The sample consisted of 10 patients, independently of sex and age, randomly divided into two groups. The evaluation instrument was the upper limbs incremental test observing the following parameters: the cardiac frequency (FC), the respiratory frequency (f), the degree of dyspnea, the tiredness of the upper limbs, the maximum burden reached and the oxygen saturation (SatO2). The parameters FC (p=0.04), f (p=0.046) e SatO2 (p=0.008) presented an average improvement of 33.33% above those of the patients that were just in the pulmonary rehabilitation. The other evaluated parameters also presented positive results, but with p>0.05. In conclusion, the results obtained with the pulmonary rehabilitation associated to the hydrotherapy overcome those found just with the pulmonary rehabilitation treatment, allowing an increase in the physical conditioning and improvement in the functional activities; although, due to the reduced number of cases, new researches should be held to confirm this exploratory study.