Breathing Exercises to Help People on Ventilators with Restricted Lung Disease

This trial is testing whether two types of breathing exercises — inspiratory muscle training and positive expiratory pressure training — can help people on mechanical ventilators with restrictive lung diseases recover better. When people need a ventilator for a long time, their breathing muscles can become weak and stop working as well as they should. This study wants to see if these special exercises, added to regular physical therapy, can strengthen those muscles and help patients come off the ventilator sooner.

People with restrictive lung diseases often need mechanical ventilation, but being on a ventilator for too long can actually weaken the muscles that help you breathe, making it harder to recover. Doctors know that targeted breathing exercises might help, but there hasn't been enough research yet to know if they really work for ventilated patients.