Effect of Air-stacking on Peak Cough Flow in Patients With Acute Cervical or High Thoracic Spinal Cord Injury

Ullevaal University Hospital

Status and phase: Withdrawn; Phase 2

Conditions: Tetraplegia; Spinal Cord Injury

Treatments: Procedure: Air-stacking with a manual resuscitator; Procedure: Air-stacking with ventilator

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01046175

S-09326b

Details and patient eligibility

About

Respiratory complications continue to be one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in people with spinal cord injury, especially among cervical and higher thoracic injuries. Both inspiratory and expiratory function are often severely decreased, leading to respiratory complications, such as atelectasis, pneumonia and ventilatory failure. The prevention of these respiratory complications needs to begin immediately after injury. To achieve effective expelling of secretions before they form mucus plugs, it is essential to improve patients ability to cough. Manually assisting the cough is one way of increasing cough flow, but an effective cough also requires adequate lung volumes. The emphasis should therefore be on expansion of the lungs before coughing. One way of expanding the lungs is by air-stacking. In air-stacking insufflations are stacked in the lungs to maximally expand them. Cough can be valued by measuring Peak Cough Flow (PCF). By combining air-stacking with manually assisted cough the PCF can be increased sufficiently. The aim of this study is to compare the effect of two different air-stacking techniques on PCF, air-stacking on a respirator versus air-stacking with a manual resuscitator.

Enrollment: 10 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• acute cervical or high thoracic spinal cord injury admitted to the ICU

Exclusion criteria

• substantial abdominal or thoracic injury
• substantial brain damage
• intubated or tracheostomized patients
• not able to cooperate
• pregnant women

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Crossover Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

10 participants in 2 patient groups

Airstacking with manual resuscitator

Experimental group

Description:

Air-stacking is a type of lung volume recruitment technique where insufflations are stacked in the lungs to maximally expand them, here done with a manual resuscitator.

Treatment:

Procedure: Air-stacking with a manual resuscitator

Air-stacking with ventilator

Active Comparator group

Description:

Air-stacking is a type of lung volume recruitment technique where insufflations are stacked in the lungs to maximally expand them, here done with a ventilator.

Treatment:

Procedure: Air-stacking with ventilator