Lung
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The Effect of Breathing Retraining Using Metronome-Based Acoustic Feedback on Exercise Endurance in COPD: A Randomized Trial.
During exercise-training patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can entrain their breathing pattern to visual-feedback cues as to achieve a slower respiratory rate and prolong exhalation. The result is an improvement in exercise tolerance and a reduction in dynamic hyperinflation. Acoustic stimuli, including metronome-generated acoustic stimuli, can entrain human movements. Accordingly, we hypothesized that exercise duration and dynamic hyperinflation would be less after exercise-training plus breathing-retraining using a metronome-based acoustic-feedback system than after exercise-training alone. ⋯ In patients with COPD, breathing-retraining using a metronome-based acoustic feedback did not result in improved exercise endurance or decreased dynamic hyperinflation when compared to exercise-training alone.