Introduction:

Respiratory muscle training is a technique that aims to increase the strength of the respiratory muscles. However, few studies have addressed physiological changes related to this intervention in patients on mechanical ventilation.

Objective:

To determine the physiological changes associated with respiratory muscle training in patients on mechanical ventilation.

Materials and methods:

A secondary data analysis was performed. The population was made up of the 62 patients in the experimental group of the main study, who received respiratory muscle training. Heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and tidal volume values were obtained. The difference between the means of each of the variables was analyzed through the paired t-test, while physiological changes between training sessions were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis test. Differences with a p<0.05 value were considered statistically significant.

Results:

Statistically significant differences were found between physiological variables before and after respiratory muscle training (p<0.05), except for tidal volume and mean blood pressure (p>0.05). In contrast, when the effect was evaluated according to the number of training sessions received by the patients, no significant differences were observed in any of the variables (p>0.05).

Conclusions:

Respiratory muscle training is a viable and tolerable therapeutic intervention in this population.

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