Voluntary regularization method of the respiratory act applied to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Respiration is a vital, complex function, fundamentally automatic that can be modulated by will. The aim of the original method submitted is the progressive rehabilitation of the patient to strain, by a gradual reduction of respiratory frequency at the progressive increase in expiration phases and the execution of a growing effort in strict relation to the execution of the method itself. The patient learns to beat out the rhythm of his respiration based upon the strokes of the metronome, calibrated at 60 strokes a minute. The most evident documentation of the efficacy of our method of voluntary regularization of the respiratory act is in the evaluation of the effort capacity of each patient, before and after the method. The data are referred to the distance covered by cyclette, in standard conditions. The examined clinical parametres comprehend: cardiac frequency, respiratory frequency, maximal pause and arterial pressure. The laboratory parametres examined include the value of the arterial astrup: pH, pCO2, HCO3-, total CO2, pO2, excess basis. The scarcity of clinical survey examined during our research does not permit the formulation of any conclusive considerations, which would lead to a critical revision of the whole field of the physiology of respiration. For this reason, it is more prudent to establish the modifications of various parametres collected, until a more certain and wider confirmation is available.