ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the effects of abdominal breathing training on sleep disorders in elderly patients with chronic heart failure. Methods Total of 100 patients with chronic heart failure complain of sleeping disorders and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)>7 points were assigned into two groups by random digits table method, 50 cases in each group. The observation group and the control group were nursed in the same way except that abdominal breathing was adapted to the observation group. Sleep status, heart rate, blood pressure, SpO2 and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) were evaluated before training, one week and eight weeks after training respectively. Statistics was used to analyze the differences between two groups. Results After training one week, the sleep status of the observation group was ameliorated, but without significant difference compared to the control group (P>0.05). And after training eight weeks, the PSQI, BNP and heart rate were (9.21 ± 6.38) points, (193.78 ± 152.16) μg/L, (63.5 ± 10.8) times/min in the observation group, and (12.92 ± 0.33) points, (417.55 ± 262.47) μg/L, (70.7 ± 8.5) times/min in the control group, and there was significant differences between 2 groups (t=3.627, 2.041, 2.767, all P 0.05). Conclusions Abdominal breathing training could ameliorate sleep status in elderly patients with chronic heart failure.