Respiratory Function Tests in Pulmonary Rehabilitation

Respiratory rehabilitation programs are widely employed in the management of patients with respiratory diseases. Nevertheless only few prospective, randomized or controlled studies have been performed on these programs and their clinical efficacy is still debated. A survey of literature in this field shows that many studies evaluated the effects of some of these programs performing respiratory function tests measuring parameters which the specific maneuvers studied were not objectively able to influence. In other words each maneuver of chest physiotherapy should be evaluated with specific tests.