Ageing is a complex process involving many variables (e.g. genetics, lifestyle factors,
chronic diseases) that interact with one another, greatly influencing the manner in
which we age. The lungs of elderly persons are subjected to a life time of exposure to
known and unknown harmful agents. The aim of this study was to investigate the
responses of ventilatory functions to breathing exercise versus breathing exercise
with chest mobilizing exercise in elderly. In this study, 30 elderly subjects were
clinically examined & subjected to laboratory investigations, and then randomly
divided into 2groups (A & B), where group “A" received diaphragmatic breathing
exercise & incentive spirometer while group “B" received diaphragmatic breathing
exercise, incentive spirometer & chest mobilizing exercise. The variables related to
ventilatory functions Forced Vital Capacity (FVC), Forced Expiratory Volume at the
1
st
second (FEV1) & Maximum voluntary ventilation (MVV) had been measured
twice; 1
st
at the beginning of the program (pre-exercise) & 2
nd
after 8 weeks (post-exercise). The results showed that the ventilatory functions reported statistical
significant (p<0.0001) improvement at post-exercise within each group when
compared with pre-exercise mean values.