The Effect of Chest Physiotherapy on the Amount of Tracheal Secretion and PaO2

Jun, Seong Sook; Moon, Mi Jin

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to find out the effect of chest physiotherapy on the amount of tracheal secretion and PaO2. After changing position of the neurosurgical patients who had tracheostomy cannula, experimental treatments were applied as bellows, manual chest percussion on group I, chest percussion and manual chest vibration on group II, chest percussion and mechanical chest vibration on group III were done. After these trials, we have analyzed the efficacy of each procedures comparing the group differences in the quantity of tracheal secretion and PaO2. Target samples were sixty patients aged between 20 to 60 who have tracheostomy state and decreased consciousness status that were admitted in NICU of a university hospital from June 1 to August 31, 1999. They assigned randomly into three experimental groups. To compare the effect of each interventions, tracheal secretion quantity was measured and PaO2 was analyzed via arterial blood gas analyzer. The data were analyzed by ANCOVA of 5% significance level using SPSS P/C program. The results were as bellows. 1) The first hypothesis " There is a difference in the quantity of the secretion among Group I, Group II and Group III" was accepted.(F=29.27, p=0.00) 2) The second hypothesis "There is a difference in PaO2 among Group I, Group II and Group III" was rejected.(F=1.71,p=0.19) From this study results, positional change and manual chest vibration including chest percussion were the most effective treatment to get maximum amount of tracheal secretion and it was confirmed that mechanical chest vibration also made much better effect than sole chest percussion method. Therefore, we concluded that the mechanical or manual chest vibration with chest percussion is more effective respiratory care method than the sole chest percussion.