POWERbreathe - Heart Failure & Disease

In patients with chronic heart failure, inspiratory muscle training, such as with the POWERbreathe Medic, has been shown to:

• Improve exercise tolerance by 19%
• Improve quality of life by 16%

Patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) have a restrictive pattern of lung function due to the presence of pulmonary hypertension. This lung 'stiffness' increases the load on the inspiratory muscles and makes a significant contribution to their dyspnoea. In addition, there is evidence of inspiratory muscle weakness that emerges as an independent predictor of prognosis in this group of patients1. Two randomised controlled trials of IMT both reported significant improvements in dyspnoea, exercise tolerance (see figure 1), quality of life.