The Effect of Inspiratory Muscle Training and Respiratory Physiotherapy on Pulmonary Functions, Respiratory Muscle Strength and Functional Capacity in Patients With Robotic Heart Surgery

During the past decade, especially with the advancement of technology, major innovations and developments have been observed in the field of surgery. Cardiac surgery is one of the important area of the surgery who renews itself day by day and adds innovations to the nature in terms of patients' comfort. One of the greatest developments in cardiac surgery in this sense is the tendency to reduce the size of the incisions with less interventional procedures. Robotic surgery is getting more and more meaningful in this area. Despite the downsizing of the surgical incisions, postoperative pulmonary complications have not completely disappeared in the robotic cardiac surgery. Major respiratory problems following traditional cardiac surgery are gas exchange problems, atelectasis, decreased coughing force and sputum retention. The effectiveness of respiratory physiotherapy applied after traditional cardiac surgery for the resolution of these complications has been proved by various investigations. Inspiratory muscle training (IMT) has been found to improve autonomic modulation in heart failure patients as well as to increase inspiratory muscle strength in applied patient populations, reduce blood pressure in hypertensive patients, and increase functional capacity in elderly individuals. Considering these benefits, when inspiratory muscle training is given to people with traditional cardiac surgery, respiratory muscle strengths, respiratory functions and functional capacities are increased compared to those not given to these patients. However, although there are complications after robotic cardiac surgery, there are no studies in the literature about respiratory physiotherapy or inspiratory muscle training. Thus, the subject of this study is the comparison of the effects of standard respiratory physiotherapy and standard respiratory physiotherapy plus inspiratory muscle training on the respiratory functions, respiratory muscle strength and functional capacity of the patients with the robotic heart surgery.