EFFECTS OF INCENTIVE SPIROMETRY ON DYSPNEA AND CHEST CLEARANCE IN ASTHMATIC PATIENTS DURING SEASONAL SMOG

Asthma is a serious and life threatening chronic respiratory disease that affects the quality of life of more than 23 million Americans- with exposure to air pollution. Air pollution can make asthma symptoms worse and trigger asthma attacks. Particle pollution can cause breathing problems. It's created when tiny bits of dust, dirt, smoke, soot, and other stuff hang in the air. The smaller the particles, the deeper they can get into the lungs and cause breath problems. Seasonal smog aggravates asthma, irritates the lungs, and makes it difficult to breathe. Long-term inflammation from breathing in too much ground-level ozone can permanently scar lung tissue. Smog with high levels of ozone is also particularly damaging for people with asthma. During seasonal smog asthma patients are more affected than normal people. Various consecutive treatments are used to treat the asthma patients for the improvement of quality of life. But at this check the effects of incentive spirometry on dyspnea and chest clearance in asthmatic patients.

This study will be randomized controlled trial. This study will be conducted in Ittefaq Hospital Lahore. Subjects meeting the predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Sample size will be 44 including both male and female. QUESTIONNAIRE used as subjective measurements and ASHMA CONTROL TEST as objective measurement. Dyspnea-12 will be used to check the dyspnea severity in asthma patients and asthma control test will be used to check asthma severity during seasonal smog. Cough and sputum assessment questionnaire will be used to check effectiveness of chest clearance. Subjects of one group will be treated with active cycle of breathing and incentive spirometry and the other group will be treated with only spirometry. Each group will receive 12 treatment sessions with one treatment session per week and it will take less than 1 hour. Pre- treatment reading of dynpnea-12, cough and sputum assessment questionnaire and asthma control test will be recorded. And post-treatment readings will also be recorded.

Outcome variables will be dyspnea-12, incentive spirometry, cough and sputum assessment questionnaire and asthma control test. Most commonly used incentive spirometry to clear the dyspnea and chest clearance in asthma patients. Data will be analyzed on SPSS-25.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Age group:30-45
• Patients of bronchial Asthma
• Patients who have difficulty in breathing

Exclusion Criteria:

• Age:<30 yrs->45 yrs
• Patients of COPD,Bronchiectasis,Pneumonia,Pulmonary TB or any other chronic lung disease.
• Patients of HTN, IHD, patients of fever or any other chronic disease