Ordinary breathing exercises can help improve the condition of pneumonia. Indeed, when performing simple exercises, the lungs begin to be intensively cleansed. They improve lymph flow, and an increased amount of oxygen enters the circulatory system.
Potential Benefits of Exercise
Respiratory gymnastics for pneumonia contributes to a faster recovery. It can also help reduce the risk of complications. You can use exercises for pneumonia, bronchitis or the common cold. After all, the respiratory load performs the following functions:
- Promotes the restoration of lung function that was impaired during the disease.
- Improves the adaptive capacity of the body to stress.
- Stimulates the defenses.
- Reduces chest deformity, atelectasis, adhesions, emphysema.
Breathing exercises for bronchitis and pneumonia should be performed regularly. She ishelps the body get used to proper breathing with the participation of the diaphragm. This allows you to saturate all tissues and organs with oxygen. You can start exercising after the body temperature stops rising. It is better to do it in a well-ventilated area or on the street.
Contraindications
Before you find out how breathing exercises are performed for pneumonia, you need to familiarize yourself with the list of situations in which it is not advisable to do it. These include the following factors:
- exhausted state of the patient;
- heart failure;
- appearance of fever;
- presence of shortness of breath at rest, progression of respiratory failure;
- mental illness that prevents the patient from doing the exercises correctly.
You can not start gymnastics during the acute stage of the disease. It is better to start doing it when the condition returns to normal.
What is gymnastics for?
Many people underestimate the importance of breathing exercises, believing that they can not be done. But just a few minutes a day will reduce the likelihood of complications of varying severity by 80%. People who figured out how to do breathing exercises with pneumonia were spared such troubles as emphysema, adhesive process. In a word, the correct execution of exercises allows you to:
- Increase lung capacity.
- Normalizenatural ventilation in the body.
- Restore the correct breathing rhythm.
- Ensure airway drainage.
- Improve diaphragm excursion (its movement).
All this activates gas exchange in the tissues of the lungs.
Starting exercise
As soon as the patient's fever stops, he can begin to perform special complexes. The simplest breathing exercises are done for pneumonia. It is carried out sitting on the edge of the bed or lying down.
First exercises can be like this. The patient in a relaxed state inhales air through the nose. Exhalation begins 3 seconds after the inhalation is completed. It is done through pursed lips. It is important that a person can make an obstacle to the escape of oxygen. Cleansing breathing exercises for pneumonia are also useful. Exercises with it are performed as follows. The patient inhales calmly and stops for 3 seconds. After that, he releases air in small bursts through his mouth. Also, exercises of the cleansing type include breathing, in which a person sings vowels at the same time. The sound must be pronounced at each push when exhaling. This can remove the spasm that has developed in the bronchi.
Strelnikova's method
In medical institutions, a special complex is used that allows you to combine exercise therapy and breathing exercises. It was developed by Professor A. N. Strelnikova. to speed up the recovery period. If you use its complex, you can activate it in a short timelymphatic supply of lung tissues, significantly improve blood flow. At the same time, drainage improves in the focus of inflammation. This allows you to prevent stagnation. Respiratory gymnastics Strelnikova with pneumonia allows you to normalize the ventilation of the lungs and ensure the normal operation of the diaphragm. Under conditions of treatment in a hospital, this gymnastics is recommended to be combined with therapeutic massage of the chest. This allows you to significantly increase the effectiveness of restorative therapy.
Strelnikova's exercises
Everyone can try to do breathing exercises in combination with physical therapy at home. But it is better to do the first workout under the supervision of a specialist. After all, it is necessary that someone monitor the respiratory function. Gymnastics should not be started if the patient in a relaxed position takes more than 60 breaths per minute. Normally, this indicator should be in the range of 40-60.
The complex includes the following exercises. They must be performed lying down, each of them is repeated 3-4 times.
- Hands are located along the body: on the exhale they rise, on the inhale they fall.
- At an average pace with voluntary breathing, the patient flexes and unbends the feet.
- On the exhale, the arms spread apart, on the inhale they approach the torso.
- With voluntary breathing, the patient alternately pulls the left and right legs towards him, bending them at the knee, sliding along the surface of the bed or rug. Hands are on the belt.
- The patient restswith bent elbows and the back of the head in bed and bends the upper part of the spine while inhaling. As you exhale, you need to go down.
- Brushes are compressed into a castle and raised with palms up at the entrance, when exhaling they return down.
- The arms are bent at the elbows, and the palms are pressed to the shoulders. Hands spread apart and back.
- The patient should raise their arms up and reach the headboard when entering, when exhaling, they return to their normal position.
- The patient alternately raises his left and right legs up, watching his breathing.
Increase load
Despite the seeming simplicity of the exercises, during the acute course of the disease, the patient is allowed to do them no more than 15 minutes a day. Breathing exercises for pneumonia in some cases should be selected individually. If a patient has pathological changes only on one side of the lung, then the main load is given just on it.
You can make them like this. It is necessary to lie on a he althy side on a roller. First, the patient takes a deep breath, and when exhaling, pulls the thigh to the stomach. In this case, the exercise therapy instructor must squeeze the chest. Another exercise is done in the same position. The patient takes a breath and raises his hand. On exhalation, the instructor presses on the anterolateral surface of the sternum. These exercises are repeated 10 times. They need to be done for about 5 days. Breathing exercises for pneumonia in children are performed in the same way.
General exercises developed by Strelnikova
You can fix the result of the light version of gymnastics during the general recovery period. For these purposes, adults and children can do special exercises that improve the function of external respiration. When performing each of them, you need to actively breathe through your nose.
- "Palms". In the standing position, patients actively bend their fingers, forming a fist, while the arms are bent at the elbows.
- "Letters". The palms are clenched into fists, the hands are raised to the level of the belt. Hands go down, palms open, fingers spread out.
- "Pump". The patient leans forward slightly and makes hand movements reminiscent of inflating tires with a hand pump.
- "Cat". The patient alternately turns to the left and right side, squatting a little.
- "Shoulder hug". The patient holds his arms bent at the elbows at shoulder level. At the entrance, he hugs himself with his arms, while they do not cross, but are parallel to each other.
- "Pendulum". Lean forward while inhaling and pull your arms to the floor, then return to the starting position, hug your shoulders.
- "Carousel". Turning the head while inhaling to the left and right, the exit is done between turns.
- "Ears". The head alternately tilts to the left and right shoulder, breathing as in exercise No. 8.
- "Pendulum head". She leans back and forth, breathing as in exercise 8.
- "Rolls". The left leg is put forward, the right leg is bent at the knee and placed on the toe. A shallow squat is performed on the left leg at the entrance. Then the weight is transferred to the right leg and anothersquat.
- "Steps". The bent leg rises to the level of the abdomen, on the right leg you need to sit down slightly and take the starting position. Then the legs change.
This is an effective breathing exercise after pneumonia. But doing such exercises is necessary not during the acute phase of the disease, but during recovery.
Other exercise options
Understanding how breathing exercises are done after pneumonia at home, you can focus not only on the complex developed by Strelnikova, but also on other exercise options. In a sitting position, you can do the following complex. Repeat each movement 8-10 times:
- Diaphragm breathing: you need to sit on the edge of a chair, lean on its back and stretch your legs. The palms should be placed on the stomach: when inhaling, it rises, while exhaling, it retracts.
- At the entrance, the hand is moved to the side and placed on the opposite shoulder, at the exit, in this position, a tilt is made.
- Sitting on the edge of a chair, you need to take on its back and bend so that the shoulder blades approach each other as you inhale, you need to relax as you exhale.
- When inhaling, the arms rise to the shoulders, while exhaling, they fall to their knees.
- Hands behind the head, elbows apart. In this position, a breath is taken, when leaning forward, the exit and the elbows are brought together.
Exercise for kids
Parents of toddlers that suffer fromfrequent acute respiratory infections and their complications, leading to the development of bronchitis and pneumonia, should pay special attention to breathing exercises. The smallest can be asked to simply do tilts in a standing position. When coughing, parents can massage the chest. Older kids can already be explained what breathing exercises look like for children after pneumonia. They need to do the same exercises as adults. If the child does not have the strength to perform the exercise therapy complex, then you can enhance the effect of breathing with the help of simple tongue twisters. The longer they are, the more useful their pronunciation will be.
