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Speech-guided breathing retraining in asthma: a randomised controlled crossover trial in real-life outpatient settings.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Breathing retraining techniques have received increased attention in the management of asthma, because there is growing evidence of the usefulness of such methods in improving quality of life, reducing symptoms and reducing bronchodilator use. Our study investigated the effect of anthroposophic therapeutic speech (ATS), which uses sounds and syllabic rhythm to improve articulation, breathing and cardiorespiratory interaction, in patients with asthma in a real-life outpatient setting. METHODS:In a randomised controlled crossover trial, patients with asthma in three centres in Switzerland and Germany were randomised to either receive 11 ATS sessions or to wait. Subsequently, patients changed either to wait or to receive ATS. Primary outcomes were changes from the beginning to the end of each phase in the Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ) and spirometry parameters. Secondary outcomes were changes in inhaled glucocorticoids, the Asthma Control Test (ACT), peak flow and asthma exacerbations. RESULTS:Altogether, 63 patients were randomised, of which 56 were enrolled and 49 completed the study. Statistically significant differences between the ATS groups and waiting control groups were found for the overall AQLQ score (d =?0.86, p =?0.001) and the domain scores for symptoms, activity limitation and emotional function as well as ACT score (d =?0.53, p =?0.048). No significant differences were observed in spirometry parameters, inhaled glucocorticoids, peak flow and days without asthma exacerbation per week. No serious adverse events occurred during ATS sessions. CONCLUSIONS:ATS significantly improves asthma control and quality of life in patients with asthma. Whether ATS may improve lung function remains to be shown. TRIAL REGISTRATION:ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02501824 . Retrospectively registered on 8 July 2015.

SUBMITTER: von Bonin D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6019518 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Speech-guided breathing retraining in asthma: a randomised controlled crossover trial in real-life outpatient settings.

von Bonin Dietrich D Klein Sabine D SD Würker Jana J Streit Eva E Avianus Oliver O Grah Christian C Salomon Jörg J Wolf Ursula U

Trials 20180625 1

<h4>Background</h4>Breathing retraining techniques have received increased attention in the management of asthma, because there is growing evidence of the usefulness of such methods in improving quality of life, reducing symptoms and reducing bronchodilator use. Our study investigated the effect of anthroposophic therapeutic speech (ATS), which uses sounds and syllabic rhythm to improve articulation, breathing and cardiorespiratory interaction, in patients with asthma in a real-life outpatient s ...[more]

PMID: 29941003

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Project description:BackgroundDespite effective pharmacotherapy, asthma continues to impair quality of life for most patients. Non-pharmacological approaches, including breathing retraining, are therefore of great interest to patients. However, clinicians rarely advocate breathing retraining and access to this intervention is restricted for most patients due to the limited availability of suitable physiotherapists and poor integration of breathing retraining into standard care. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of a digital self-guided breathing retraining intervention.MethodsIn this randomised controlled trial, we recruited patients from 34 general practices in the UK. Eligibility criteria for patients with asthma were broad, comprising a physician diagnosis of asthma, age of 16-70 years, receipt of at least one anti-asthma medication in the previous year, and impaired asthma-related quality of life (Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire [AQLQ] score of <5·5). We developed a self-guided intervention, which was delivered as a DVD plus a printed booklet (DVDB). Participants were randomly assigned to receive either the DVDB intervention, three face-to-face breathing retraining sessions, or standard care, in a 2:1:2 ratio, for 12 months. Randomisation was achieved using the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit telephone randomisation service by use of random number generators. The primary outcome was the AQLQ score in the intention-to-treat population at 12 months. The trial was powered to show equivalence between the two active intervention groups, and superiority of both intervention groups over usual care. Secondary outcomes included patient-reported and physiological measures of asthma control, patient acceptability, and health-care costs. This trial was registered with International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number registry, number ISRCTN88318003.FindingsBetween Nov 5, 2012 and Jan 28, 2014, invitations to participate in the study were sent to 15 203 patients with general practitioner-diagnosed asthma, of whom 655 were recruited into the study. AQLQ scores at 12 months were significantly higher in the DVDB group (mean 5·40, SD 1·14) than in the usual care group (5·12, SD 1·17; adjusted mean difference 0·28, 95% CI 0·11 to 0·44), and in the face-to-face group (5·33, SD 1·06) than in the usual care group (adjusted mean difference 0·24, 95% CI 0·04 to 0·44); AQLQ scores were similar between the DVDB group and the face-to-face group (0·04, 95% CI -0·16 to 0·24). There were no significant differences between the randomisation groups in FEV1 or fraction of exhaled nitric oxide. 744 adverse events occurred in 272 patients: 101 (39%) of 261 patients in the DVDB group, 55 (42%) of 132 patients in the face-to-face group, and 132 (50%) of 262 in the usual care group, with patients reporting one or more event. 11 (4%) patients in the DVDB group, four (3%) patients in the face-to-face group, and 20 (8%) patients in the usual care group had a serious adverse event.InterpretationBreathing retraining programmes improve quality of life in patients with incompletely controlled asthma despite having little effect on lung function or airway inflammation. Such programmes can be delivered conveniently and cost-effectively as a self-guided digital audiovisual programme, so might also reduce health-care costs.FundingUK National Institute of Health Research.

Project description:BACKGROUND:In the context of the current refugee crisis, emergency services often have to deal with patients who have no language in common with the staff. As interpreters are not always available, especially in emergency settings, medical personnel rely on alternative solutions such as machine translation, which raises reliability and data confidentiality issues, or medical fixed-phrase translators, which sometimes lack usability. A collaboration between Geneva University Hospitals and Geneva University led to the development of BabelDr, a new type of speech-enabled fixed-phrase translator. Similar to other fixed-phrase translators (such as Medibabble or UniversalDoctor), it relies on a predefined list of pretranslated sentences, but instead of searching for sentences in this list, doctors can freely ask questions. OBJECTIVE:This study aimed to assess if a translation tool, such as BabelDr, can be used by doctors to perform diagnostic interviews under emergency conditions and to reach a correct diagnosis. In addition, we aimed to observe how doctors interact with the system using text and speech and to investigate if speech is a useful modality in this context. METHODS:We conducted a crossover study in December 2017 at Geneva University Hospitals with 12 French-speaking doctors (6 doctors working at the outpatient emergency service and 6 general practitioners who also regularly work in this service). They were asked to use the BabelDr tool to diagnose two standardized Arabic-speaking patients (one male and one female). The patients received a priori list of symptoms for the condition they presented with and were instructed to provide a negative or noncommittal answer for all other symptoms during the diagnostic interview. The male patient was standardized for nephritic colic and the female, for cystitis. Doctors used BabelDr as the only means of communication with the patient and were asked to make their diagnosis at the end of the dialogue. The doctors also completed a satisfaction questionnaire. RESULTS:All doctors were able to reach the correct diagnosis based on the information collected using BabelDr. They all agreed that the system helped them reach a conclusion, even if one-half felt constrained by the tool and some considered that they could not ask enough questions to reach a diagnosis. Overall, participants used more speech than text, thus confirming that speech is an important functionality in this type of tool. There was a negative association (P=.02) between the percentage of successful speech interactions (spoken sentences sent for translation) and the number of translated text items, showing that the doctors used more text when they had no success with speech. CONCLUSIONS:In emergency settings, when no interpreter is available, speech-enabled fixed-phrase translators can be a good alternative to reliably collect information from the patient.

Project description:Introduction and aimUncontrolled asthma is a global health challenge with substantial impact on quality of life (QoL) and overall healthcare costs. Unrecognised and/or unmanaged comorbidities often contribute to presence of uncontrolled asthma. Abnormalities in breathing pattern are termed dysfunctional breathing and are not only common in asthma but also lead to asthma-like symptoms and reduced QoL, and, in keeping with this, improvement with breathing normalisation. Evidence-based guidelines recommend breathing retraining interventions as an adjuvant treatment in uncontrolled asthma. Physiotherapy-based breathing pattern modification interventions incorporating relaxation have been shown to improve asthma-related QoL in primary care patients with impaired asthma control. Despite anecdotal reports, effectiveness of breathing retraining in patients referred to secondary care with incomplete asthma control has not been formally assessed in a randomised controlled trial (RCT). We aim to investigate the effect of breathing exercises on asthma-related QoL in patients with incomplete asthma control despite specialist care.Methods and analysisThis two-armed assessor-blinded multicentre RCT will investigate the effect of physiotherapist-delivered breathing retraining on asthma QoL questionnaire (MiniAQLQ) in addition to usual specialist care, recruiting from seven outpatient departments and one specialised clinic representing all regions of Denmark during 2017-2019. We will include 190 consenting adults with incomplete asthma control, defined as Asthma Control Questionnaire 6-item score ≥0.8. Participants will randomly be allocated to either breathing exercise programme in addition to usual care (BrEX +UC) or UC alone. BrEX compiles three physiotherapy sessions and encouragement to perform home exercise daily. Both groups continue usual secondary care management. Primary outcome is between-group difference in MiniAQLQ at 6 months. Secondary outcomes include patient-reported outcome measures, spirometry and accelerometer.Ethics and disseminationEthics Committee, Region Zealand (SJ-552) and Danish Data Protection Agency (REG-55-2016) approved the trial. Results will be reported in peer-reviewed scientific journals.Trial registration numberNCT03127059; Pre-results.

Project description:The non-fluent/agrammatic variant of primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA) presents with a gradual decline in grammar and motor speech resulting from selective degeneration of speech-language regions in the brain. There has been considerable progress in identifying treatment approaches to remediate language deficits in other primary progressive aphasia variants; however, interventions for the core deficits in nfvPPA have yet to be systematically investigated. Further, the neural mechanisms that support behavioural restitution in the context of neurodegeneration are not well understood. We examined the immediate and long-term benefits of video implemented script training for aphasia (VISTA) in 10 individuals with nfvPPA. The treatment approach involved repeated rehearsal of individualized scripts via structured treatment with a clinician as well as intensive home practice with an audiovisual model using 'speech entrainment'. We evaluated accuracy of script production as well as overall intelligibility and grammaticality for trained and untrained scripts. These measures and standardized test scores were collected at post-treatment and 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-up visits. Treatment resulted in significant improvement in production of correct, intelligible scripted words for trained topics, a reduction in grammatical errors for trained topics, and an overall increase in intelligibility for trained as well as untrained topics at post-treatment. Follow-up testing revealed maintenance of gains for trained scripts up to 1 year post-treatment on the primary outcome measure. Performance on untrained scripts and standardized tests remained relatively stable during the follow-up period, indicating that treatment helped to stabilize speech and language despite disease progression. To identify neural predictors of responsiveness to intervention, we examined treatment effect sizes relative to grey matter volumes in regions of interest derived from a previously identified speech production network. Regions of significant atrophy within this network included bilateral inferior frontal cortices and supplementary motor area as well as left striatum. Volumes in a left middle/inferior temporal region of interest were significantly correlated with the magnitude of treatment effects. This region, which was relatively spared anatomically in nfvPPA patients, has been implicated in syntactic production as well as visuo-motor facilitation of speech. This is the first group study to document the benefits of behavioural intervention that targets both linguistic and motoric deficits in nfvPPA. Findings indicate that behavioural intervention may result in lasting and generalized improvement of communicative function in individuals with neurodegenerative disease and that the integrity of spared regions within the speech-language network may be an important predictor of treatment response.

Dataset Information

Speech-guided breathing retraining in asthma: a randomised controlled crossover trial in real-life outpatient settings.

Publications

Speech-guided breathing retraining in asthma: a randomised controlled crossover trial in real-life outpatient settings.

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