Abstract
Study design:
A cross-sectional experimental study.
Objective:
The purpose of this study is to examine the benefit of elastic abdominal binders on voluntary cough in persons with spinal cord injury.
Setting:
Spinal rehabilitation unit in a teaching hospital.
Methods:
We measured voluntary cough peak expiratory flow rate (in 21 subjects with spinal cord injury, (18 tetraplegia, 3 paraplegia) under three conditions: without abdominal binder as the baseline, with single-strap abdominal binder and triple-strap abdominal binder.
Results:
The results showed that the mean cough peak expiratory flow rate in all subjects without abdominal binder was 277.1 l per min. There was a significant increase in flow rate with the use of abdominal binders: 325.7 l per min with single-strap abdominal binder and 345.2 l per min with triple-strap abdominal binder (P<0.05, paired t-test). The mean cough peak expiratory flow rate in tetraplegic subjects using triple-strap abdominal binders was significantly higher compared with those using single-strap abdominal binders (322.1 l per min and 299.4 l per min, respectively).
Conclusion:
Abdominal binders can be used as an effective method to improve cough ability in spinal cord injured patients, with triple-strap abdominal binder achieving greater cough peak expiratory flows.
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Acknowledgements
This project was funded by the short-term project grant from University Malaya, Malaysia; IPPP/UPDiT/Geran(PJP)/F0169/2005A.
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Julia, P., Sa'ari, M. & Hasnan, N. Benefit of triple-strap abdominal binder on voluntary cough in patients with spinal cord injury. Spinal Cord 49, 1138–1142 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.2011.53
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.2011.53
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