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Benefits of full yogic breathing for patients with chronic heart failure
A Shevelyok1
,
G Kravchenko2
,
V Venzheha1
,
N Vatutin1
,
1M. Gorkiy Donetsk national medical university, V. K. Gusak Institute of Urgent and Recovery Surgery - Donetsk - Ukraine
,
216th city clinical polyclinic, Outpatient department - Minsk - Belarus
,
Background: Chronic heart failure (HF) remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality all over the world. Slow yogic breathing has been shown to improve cardiovascular and psychological parameters among healthy individuals, but its potential benefit for HF patients is unclear.
Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of full yogic breathing in patients with acute decompensated HF.
Methods: The study included 130 patients (mean age 65.2±5.7 years) hospitalized for acute decompensated HF with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (<40 %). All patients were divided into two groups: 66 patients received only standard therapy of HF (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, ß-blockers, aldosterone antagonists, digoxin, diuretics) and 64 ones additionally practiced the full yogic breathing during all hospitalization period. On-admission and discharge measurement included 6-minute walk test, evaluation of dyspnea by the Borg scale, transthoracic echocardiography, forced vital capacity (FVC), arterial oxygen saturation (SpO2) and quality of life (QoL) assessment by the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire. Length of hospitalization was assessed in all participants.
Results: The statistical analyses were significant for favorable changes in the breathing group, compared to the control, for 6-minute walk test distance (P = 0.016), severity of dyspnea (P = 0.024), FVC (P < 0.01), SpO2 (P = 0.036) and scores for the total QoL (P < 0.01). No difference was found in echocardiography parameters between groups. Average length of hospitalization was less in breathing group compared to the control (16.2±2.2 versus 19.8±2.9 days, P < 0.001). After adjustment for significant covariates in Cox regression models, full yogic breathing practice was an independent predictor of reduction of hospitalization length for acute decompensated HF (odds ratio (OR) 0.16, 95 % confidence interval (CI) 0.05-0.38) and improvement of NYHA class (OR 0.24, 95 % CI 0.18-0.56).
Conclusion: In acute decompensated HF patients full yogic breathing practice in addition to standard therapy is associated with a significant improvement of exercise intolerance, lung function, NYHA class and QoL and reduction of hospitalization length.
In line with the ESC mission, newly presented content is made available to all for a limited time (4 months for ESC Congress, 3 months for other events). ESC Professional Members, Association Members (Ivory & above) benefit from year-round access to all the resources from their respective Association, and to all content from previous years. Fellows of the ESC (FESC), and Professionals in training or under 40 years old, who subscribed to a Young Combined Membership package benefit from access to all ESC 365 content from all events, all editions, all year long. Find out more about ESC Memberships here.
