Muscle energy techniques in the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease : a narrative review

Abstract

Physiotherapy plays a major role in the long-term management of COPD. Guidelines issued by the BTS (2013) and the GOLD guidelines (2017) set a strong recommendation for pulmonary rehabilitation, chest mobility and breathing exercises as a management for these patients. Research is now focusing on METs as an adjunct to other treatments but evidence is still inconclusive. The aim of this review is to evaluate the effectiveness of METs on chest expansion, pulmonary function and exercise tolerance for patients diagnosed with COPD. Papers were included under the population intervention comparator outcome (PICO) framework. Critical appraisal, data abstraction, and synthesis were carried out by the different authors. Out of 23 titles screened, 7 interventions with a low to moderate risk of bias met the inclusion criteria. Studies that implemented METs intervention were observed to have promising results on chest expansion, pulmonary function and exercise tolerance when integrated with self-stretching exercises, chest mobility exercises and/or breathing exercises, aerobic training and pulmonary rehabilitation. METs as an adjuvant treatment in patients with COPD show favourable improvements in pulmonary function, chest expansion and exercise tolerance. However, there is still insufficient evidence.