Effect of Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation Addition in Exercise with Expiratory Muscle Trainer on FEV1 And FVC in Untrained Healthy Subjects

Abstract

Coughing is a mechanism for expelling foreign particles or excess mucus in the airway by increasing
high expiratory pressure. When coughing, the respiratory muscles that control cough production are the
inspiratory and expiratory muscles. Weakness of the expiratory muscle can affect to the ability to generate
sufficient pressure to cough. In generally, a decrease in respiratory muscle’s strength can occur in patients
who have experience of prolonged immobilization, elderly people who suffer from sarcopenia, to stroke
patients. The untrained healthy persons were not realizing the effects of their lifestyle which can reduce the
rectus abdominis muscle as an additional expiratory muscle. If it occurred in long time, it will reduce the
lung function capacity of force expiratory volume (FEV1) and force vital capacity (FVC). The subjects of
this study were 16 untrained healthy males with aged 18-40 years. Furthermore, they divided into 2 groups,
the intervention group with Expiratory Muscle Trainer (EMT) training plus of Neuromuscular Electrical
Stimulation (NMES) on the rectus abdominis muscle and the control group with exercise with Expiratory
Muscle Trainer only. The outcome was measured for FEV1 and FVC by spirometry. The results of this study
were indicating an increase in FEV1 and FVC in each group however. The intervention group was increase
of FEV1 0.22+0.22 (p value=0.18) and the control group was 0.01+0.39 (p value=0.92). The intervention
group was increase of FVC 0.50+0.48 (p value=0.02) and the control group was 0.32+0.51 (p value=0.12).
The FEV1 results between the two groups were not significant difference (p value=0.21) and as well as FVC
results after 4 weeks of training. In summary, this study concluded that EMT training with NMES increased
FVC even though the difference between the two was not significant.