STUDY DESIGN: A cross-sectional experimental study.
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to examine the benefit of elastic abdominal binders on voluntary cough in persons with spinal cord injury.
SETTING: Spinal rehabilitation unit in a teaching hospital.
METHODS: We measured voluntary cough peak expiratory flow rate (in 21 subjects with spinal cord injury, (18 tetraplegia, 3 paraplegia) under three conditions: without abdominal binder as the baseline, with single-strap abdominal binder and triple-strap abdominal binder.
RESULTS: The results showed that the mean cough peak expiratory flow rate in all subjects without abdominal binder was 277.1 l per min. There was a significant increase in flow rate with the use of abdominal binders: 325.7 l per min with single-strap abdominal binder and 345.2 l per min with triple-strap abdominal binder (P<0.05, paired t-test). The mean cough peak expiratory flow rate in tetraplegic subjects using triple-strap abdominal binders was significantly higher compared with those using single-strap abdomina
l binders (322.1 l per min and 299.4 l per min, respectively).
CONCLUSION: Abdominal binders can be used as an effective method to improve cough ability in spinal cord injured patients, with triple-strap abdominal binder achieving greater cough peak expiratory flows.
Comment in: Frisbie JH. Question of stamina for the diaphragm. Spinal Cord. 2012 Jun;50(6):480. doi: 10.1038/sc.2011.164. Epub 2012 Jan 17. PubMed PMID: 22249332.