Örebro Studies in Medicine 129 I
ÖREBRO 2015 2015ba
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barbara cristina brocki is originally from Brazil, where she gained her Physiotherapy degree in 1982. Barbara was registered as a PhD-student at Örebro sity in 2011, and conducted her research at Aalborg Univer-sity Hospital, Denmark. Since 1985, she has been working at this hospital within different medical and surgical settings. Her main area of interest is respiratory physiotherapy and rehabilitation within the thoracic surgery field.
Persistent respiratory problems and losses in physical performance and activity levels are common following lung cancer surgery, contributing to an impaired health-related quality of life. Exercise training is widely used in patients with respiratory conditions to enhance physical performance and reduce symptoms, but evidence of the effects of exercise training in this population is inconclusive and needs further research. Lung cancer surgery is associated with a high incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications, influencing the outcome of the surgery. Respiratory muscle weakness following the surgery may be a precursor to postoperative pulmonary complications. Inspiratory muscle training before lung cancer surgery has the potential to reduce the incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications, but the effects of postoperative inspiratory muscle training in the early postoperative period need to be ve-rified. The presence and impact of respiratory muscle weakness on outcome after hospital discharge has not been addressed in the literature.
As life expectancy following lung cancer surgery increases, the ability to resume daily living activities and improve health-related quality of life be-come increasingly important issues in health care. This dissertation presents new findings regarding the effect of inspiratory muscle training and exercise training following lung cancer surgery. The course of recovery of pulmonary function, respiratory muscle strength, physical performance and health-related quality of life in this population is also presented.
issn 1652-4063 isbn 978-91-7529-097-3
