Abstract
The purpose of this research was to find out the effect of chest physiotherapy on the amount of tracheal secretion and $PaO_2$. After changing position of the neurosurgical patients who had tracheostomy cannula, experimental treatments were applied as bellows, manual chest percussion on groupI, chest percussion and manual chest vibration on groupII, chest percussion and mechanical chest vibration on groupIII were done. After these trials, we have analyzed the efficacy of each procedures comparing the group differences in the quantity of tracheal secretion and $PaO_2$. Target samples were sixty patients aged between 20 to 60 who have tracheostomy state and decreased consciousness status that were admitted in NICU of a university hospital from June 1 to August 31, 1999. They assigned randomly into three experimental groups. To compare the effect of each interventions, tracheal secretion quantify was measured and $PaO_2$ was analyzed via arterial blood gas analyzer. The data were analyzed by ANCOVA of 5% significance level using SPSS P/C program. The results were as bellows. 1) The first hypothesis 'There is a difference In the quantify of the secretion among GroupI, GroupII and GroupIII' was accepted.(F=29.27, p=0.00) 2) The second hypothesis 'There is a difference in $PaO_2$ among GroupI, GroupII and GroupIII' was rejected.(F=1.71, p=0.19) From this study results, positional change and manual chest vibration including chest percussion were the most effective treatment to get maximum amount of tracheal secretion and it was confirmed that mechanical chest vibration also made much better effect than sole chest percussion method. Therefore, we concluded that the mechanical or manual chest vibration with chest percussion is more effective respiratory care method than the sole chest percussion.