Effectiveness of Chest Physiotherapy in Broncho Pulmonary Clearance in Respiratory Distress Neonates

Purpose: Globally, the mortality rate of respiratory distress has been quite high due to unability to maintain oxygenation and overcome abnormal work of breathing. Chest Physical therapy, apart from providing advantageous outcomes to the adults, chest physical therapy is pivotal for newborns too but differs in terms of physiology and anatomy. Various chest physiotherapy techniques including percussions, vibrations, and compressions are quite effective in reducing mortality rate in neonates.Many studies has been conducted worldwidely, but still there has been limited data in Pakistan about the effect of bronchopulmonary clearance in neonatal intensive care unit, so this study was conducted to find the effectiveness of chest physiotherapy in neonatal intensive care unit Materials and Methods: This was the non-randomized controlled trial study conducted in tertiary care hospital of karachi , Pakistan. Total 40 samples collected through convenient based sampling were included in this study . The inclusion criteria including gestational age more than 37 weeks with atelactasis, mucous plugging, airway compromised, intubated or extubated, hospital admission, and chest complications where as exclusion criteria included cardiopulmonary instability, post surgery, pre term, intra ventricular hemmorage, fits or epilepsy, failure to thrive, and on consistent feed. Bronchopulmonary Clearance techniques such as Percussions , Compressions, and Vibrations along with suctioning and postural drainage were performed routinely twice daily session one in morning and one in evening was performed for total 14 days which means total 28 sessions of chest physiotherapy was implemented and chest xray, sp02, Heart rate, and respiratory rate was measured pre and post the sessions. Findings: The mean age of the participants were 37.050±5.57, out of which 20(52.5%) were females and 19(47.5%) were males. Result showed that post chest xray after chest physiotherapy was .2500±.49355 and post session spo2 was 2. .075 ± 4.56513. The chest physiotherapy was statistically significant in mucociliary clearance, lung expansion, preventing atelectasis, airway clearance, and other chest complications (0.008). Implications to Theory, Practice and Policy: Limitations of this study were that small sample size was taken, and data was collected from one tertiary care hospital of Karachi so it doesn’t showed generalization. Further studies in terms of large sample size are required for validity and reliability of this research.