To keep your lungs healthy, all you need to do is take a deep breath and hold it for three to five seconds or simply yawn and sigh occasionally. After having chest, back or abdominal surgery or general anesthesia, patients find these basic breathing exercises hard to do. Pain, sleepiness, bandages and immobility force shallow breathing and stifle your cough. Unless you resume normal breathing, lung collapse and pneumonia may complicate your recovery. A volumetric incentive spirometer, or IS, serves as a self-administered, deep-breathing coach.
Volume Exercise
You can master a volumetric IS quickly. It consists of a wide-bore tube with a mouthpiece on one end that connects to a clear cylinder with a float inside. As you inhale through the mouthpiece, the float rises in proportion to the size of your breath. Your respiratory care specialist will coach you to inhale deeply to a maximum volume determined by your body size. After surgery, the biggest breath you can take may be only half of your normal volume. Clinical Practice Guidelines of the American Association of Respiratory Care, AARC, in effect since 1991, suggest five to 10 deep breaths every hour while awake. Your target, which may take a few days to reach, is the normal maximum volume for a person your size and age. Watching your progress provides incentive toward your goal.
Dr. M. Joshi at the Rehabilitation Research Center of SMS Medical College and Hospital in Jaipur, India, reported in the Indian Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in 2002 that volumetric IS also improves respiratory muscle strength in quadriplegic patients with paralytic neck trauma.
Flow Exercise
Many ISs have a second float device, a ball or flat disc, that you raise higher by inhaling faster. It is a simple flow meter. Patient education materials, such as those provided at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Ohio State Medical Center, depict the devices and their use. Your goal is to regulate inspiratory flow to keep the indicator within a certain range. Inhale too fast, and you will direct air only down clear air passages, bypassing partially occluded passages. This bypasses lung areas that need opening. Inhale too slowly, and you will simply get too little air before you feel the need to exhale. Learn flow control for successful therapy.
Cough Exercise
After lung, back or abdominal surgery, pain will tempt you toward shallow breathing and no coughing. Your inactivity allows mucus in your airways to plug air passages, leading to pneumonia and low oxygen levels. A volumetric IS helps fill your lungs with air so even a mild cough has a lot of air behind it. Take a slow, deep breath, hold it for three to five seconds, then cough it out. You may also "huff" it out, a slightly gentler kind of cough. Repeat this with your inspiratory exercises whenever you feel a need to cough.
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