New Device for Improving Cough Function: Through Assisting Glottic Function

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: The patients with glottic dysfunction cannot cough effectively. It is difficult to eliminate pulmonary secretions and to provide lung expansion exercise in those patients. Thus we made a device which substitutes the function of glottis and examines the effectiveness of the external glottic function of the device. METHOD: This new device was made of two parts connection and control part. Connection part had three ports patient connection, insufflation and connection port. The insufflation port with one-way valve allows additional air stacking using a manual resuscitation bag after a patients's deep inspiration. Control part had external glottic function by air flow control with button pushing simply. The vital capacity (VC), maximal insufflation capacity (MIC), MIC with device (MICdevice), unassistive peak cough flow (UPCF), assistive peak cough flow (APCF) and assistive peak cough flow with device (APCFdevice) were measured in six patients. RESULTS: In tested patients, four were amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients and two were cervical spinal cord injury patients with tracheostomized. The value of MICdevice or APCFdevice was higher than MIC or APCF in all patients. CONCLUSION: This new device can improve the bronchial toileting by improving cough function and also provide lung expansion exercise effectively in patients with glottic dysfunction.