Effect of varying abdominal pressures on pulmonary function in seated tetraplegic patients: A case report

Purpose: This study was done to evaluate the effect of varying pressures of abdominal binders on pulmonary function in seated tetraplegic patients.

Three subjects with lower cervical spinal cord injury were included in this case report. Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) and Peak Expiratory Flow Rate (PEF) were recorded first without the binder (baseline) and then with the binder by gradually increasing the abdominal pressure till the measured FVC value fell below baseline level. Values were then plotted on a graph to see the trend.

It was observed that as compared to baseline, there was linear increase in the FVC and PEF values in all the three subjects with increase in the abdominal pressure with binders. The change in FVC was more linear when compared to PEF with in the subjects