Karunakara Padhy1 , Nirupama Devi2 , Madhu Kosuri3 , Satyanarayana Venkat Ponangi4
BACKGROUND Incidence of Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is increasing day by day. Cardiac rehabilitation is an important aspect of management of Coronary Artery Disease. Anuloma Viloma Pranayama is beneficial to cardiac patients as it increases parasympathetic activity and lowers blood pressure and respiratory rate. This study was designed to assess the benefit of Anuloma Viloma Pranayama as rehabilitation therapy in post Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG) surgery patients. Parameters of pulmonary function test (PFT) were measured before and after 3 months of performing CABG. METHODS The study was carried out in the Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, CARE Hospital, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, in collaboration with Department of Psychology and Parapsychology and yoga village of Andhra University. CAD patients admitted to the hospital for CABG procedure were included in the study. Thirty patients were selected for performing pranayama (cases) and 30 patients were taken as controls. The study was approved by the institutional ethics committee of Care Hospital, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. Patients who were admitted for CABG were advised to practice pranayama for 3 months along with normal rehabilitative steps from 3rd postoperative day. Pulmonary function test was measured by spirometry. Parameters like Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 second (FEV1), Forced Vital Capacity (FVC), FEV1 : FVC ratio, Peak Expiratory Flow Rate (PEFR) and Maximum Voluntary Ventilation (MVV) were measured. A comparison of pulmonary parameters was done between groups and statistically analysed using SPSS 20 software. P Valve < 0.05 was considered as significant. RESULTS Results of the study were analysed and compared between cases and controls. All the parameters of PFT improved significantly in pranayama group 3 months after CABG when compared with their preoperative values. There was also statistically significant improvement of all PFT parameters when compared between pranayama group (cases) and the control group. CONCLUSIONS Anuloma Viloma Pranayama is beneficial to postoperative CABG patients. It helps in reducing air way inflammation, air way collapse, and increases chest expansion, air way oxygenation along with improvement of pulmonary function tests.
