Respiratory gymnastics with pneumonia: the benefits of gymnastics

Normal breathing exercises can help improve the condition of pneumonia. After all, when performing simple exercises, the lungs begin to cleanse intensively. They improve the flow of lymph, and an increased amount of oxygen enters the circulatory system.

The potential benefits of exercise

Respiratory gymnastics with pneumonia contributes to a faster recovery. Also, with its help, you can minimize the likelihood of complications. You can use the exercises for pneumonia, bronchitis, or a common cold. After all, the respiratory load performs the following functions:

1. Helps to restore lung function, which were impaired in the disease.
2. Improves the body's adaptive capacity for loads.
3. Stimulates the work of defenses.
4. It reduces the likelihood of chest deformation, the development of atelectasis, the formation of adhesions, emphysema.

Breathing exercises with bronchitis and pneumonia should be performed regularly. It helps 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 begin to exercise after your body temperature stops rising. It is better to do it in a well-ventilated room or on the street.

Contraindications

Before figuring out how respiratory gymnastics is performed with 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 condition of the patient;
• cardiovascular failure;
• the occurrence of fever;
• the presence of dyspnea at rest, the progression of respiratory failure;
• mental illnesses that prevent the patient from performing 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 normalizes.

What is gymnastics prescribed 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 developing complications of varying severity by 80%. People who figured out how to do breathing exercises with pneumonia were spared the troubles such as pulmonary emphysema, adhesions. In a word, the correct execution of exercises allows you to:

1. Increase the working volume of the lungs.
2. Normalize natural ventilation in the body.
3. Restore the correct breathing rhythm.
4. Provide airway drainage.
5. Improve the diaphragm excursion (its movement).

All this activates gas exchange in the lung tissues.

Start Exercise

As soon as the patient stops fever, he can begin to perform special complexes. The simplest respiratory gymnastics is done with pneumonia. It is carried out sitting on the edge of the bed or lying down.

The first exercises may be like this. The patient in a relaxed state inhales air through his nose. 3 seconds after the end of the inhalation, exhalation begins. It is done through clenched lips. It is important that a person can obstruct the passage of oxygen. Cleansing breathing exercises for pneumonia are also helpful. Her exercises are performed as follows. The patient inhales quietly and stops for 3 seconds. After that, he lets out air with small shocks through his mouth. Also, cleaning exercises include breathing, in which a person sings vowels at the same time. The sound must be pronounced at every push during exhalation. This is able to remove the spasm that developed in the bronchi.

Strelnikova Method

In medical institutions use a special complex that allows you to combine exercise therapy and breathing exercises. It was developed by Professor Strelnikova A.N. to speed up the recovery period. If you use its complex, then you can activate the lymphatic supply of lung tissue in a short time, significantly improve blood flow. At the same time, drainage improves in the focus of inflammation . This helps prevent stagnation. Strelnikova breathing exercises with pneumonia can normalize lung ventilation and ensure normal diaphragm function. Under the 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 rehabilitation therapy.

Strelnikova exercises

Everyone can try to do breathing exercises in combination with physical therapy at home. But it is better to do the first training under the supervision of a specialist. After all, it is necessary for someone to monitor 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.

1. Hands are located along the body: on exhalation, they rise, on inspiration - they fall.
2. At an average pace with voluntary breathing, the patient flexes and extends the feet.
3. On exhalation, the arms are spread apart, on inhalation, they approach the body.
4. With arbitrary breathing, the patient alternately pulls his left and right legs toward himself, bending them at the knee, sliding along the surface of the bed or rug. Hands are on the belt.
5. The patient rests with bent elbows and the back of the head to the bed and bends the upper part of the spine upon inhalation. As you exhale, you need to go down.
6. The hands are compressed into the lock and rise with the palms up at the entrance, when they exhale, they return down.
7. Hands are bent at the elbows, and palms are pressed to the shoulders. Hands are spread apart and back.
8. The patient should raise his arms up and reach the headboard at the entrance, when exhaling, he returns to his normal position.
9. The patient alternately raises his left and right leg up, watching his breath.

Load increase

Despite the apparent 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. Respiratory gymnastics with pneumonia in some cases should be selected individually. If the patient's pathological changes are observed only on one side of the lung, then the main load is given just on it.

You can do them like this. It is necessary to lie on a healthy side on the roller. At first, the patient takes a deep breath, and when exhaling, pulls the thigh to the stomach. In this case, the instructor of exercise therapy should compress the chest. In the same position, another exercise is done. 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. Respiratory gymnastics with pneumonia in children is performed according to the same scheme.

General exercises developed by Strelnikova

You can fix the result of a lightweight version of gymnastics during the period of general recovery. For these purposes, adults and children can do special exercises that improve the function of external respiration. When performing each of them, you must actively breathe through your nose.

1. "Okay." In a standing position, patients actively bend their fingers, forming a fist, while the arms are bent at the elbows.
2. "Pogonchiki". The palms are clenched into fists, the hands are raised to the level of the belt. Hands fall down, palms open, fingers spread out.
3. "Pump". The patient leans forward slightly and makes with his hands movements resembling inflation of tires with a hand pump.
4. "Cat". The patient alternately turns to the left and right side, crouching a little.
5. "Shoulder hug." The patient holds his arms bent at the elbows at shoulder level. At the entrance, he hugs himself with his hands, while they do not cross, but are parallel to each other.
6. "Pendulum". Lean forward while inhaling and pull your arms to the floor, then return to your starting position, hug your shoulders.
7. "Carousel". Turning the head on the inhale left and right, the exit is done between the turns.
8. "Ears". The head bends alternately to the left and right shoulder, breathing as in exercise No. 8.
9. "The pendulum head." She leans back and forth, breathing as in exercise number 8.
10. "Rolling". The left leg is pushed forward, the right is bent at the knee and placed on the toe. Shallow squat is performed on the left foot at the entrance. Then the weight is transferred to the right leg and another squat is done.
11. "Steps". The bent leg rises to the level of the abdomen, on the right leg you need to crouch slightly and take the initial position. Then the legs change.

This is an effective respiratory gymnastics after pneumonia. But to do such exercises is necessary not during the acute phase of the disease, but during recovery.

Other exercise options

Understanding how breathing exercises after pneumonia are done at home, you can focus not only on the complex developed by Strelnikova, but also on other types of exercises. In the sitting position, you can do the following complex. Each movement must be repeated 8-10 times:

• Diaphragm breathing: you must sit on the edge of the chair, lean on its back and stretch your legs. The palms should be placed on the stomach: when you inhale it rises, when you exhale, it retracts.
• At the entrance, the hand is pulled to the side and placed on the opposite shoulder, at the exit in this position a slope is made.
• Sitting on the edge of the chair, you need to take it on its back and bend so that the shoulder blades approach each other on inhalation, while exhaling, you need to relax.
• On inhalation, the arms rise to the shoulders, on the exhale - lower to the knees.
• Hands are wound behind the head, elbows are divorced. In this position, a breath is taken, when leaning forward - the exit and elbows are brought together.

Exercises for children

Parents of peanuts who suffer from frequent 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 just do the bends in a standing position. When coughing, parents can massage the chest. Older babies can already be explained how breathing exercises for children after pneumonia look like. They need to do the same exercises as adults. If the child does not have the strength to perform the exercise therapy complex, then the effect of breathing can be enhanced with the help of simple tongue twisters. The longer they are, the more pronounced their pronunciation will be.