Abstract

In patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and end stage heart failure heart transplantation is the definitive treatment strategy. Post-operative pulmonary complications are very common in any solid organ transplant surgery. In maximum of heart transplant surgeries pleural effusion is very common due to which the patient require prolong hospital stay and mechanical ventilation. This case study shows the severe right ventricular dysfunction who was underwent a heart transplant surgery. The past medical history reveals pulmonary embolism, hemicolectomy (cancer) and some risk factors including smoking. During the post-operative recovery period the patient received immunosuppressive treatment with prednisone, cyclosporine, mycophenolate. Their was reduced air entry in both lungs and the respiratory rate was 20 cpm. Physiotherapy goals for the patient is to improve cardiopulmonary function, prevent further cardiopulmonary complication and improve fatigability and cardiopulmonary endurance. The patient physiotherapy treatment for twice a day for minimum of 40 ins per session which included ambulation, limb mobilisation and respiratory exercises. This study concluded that positive airway pressure as a treatment approach was safe, feasible and easy during sub-intensive care setting while treating patients with post-operative pleural effusion.

Keywords: Pleural Effusion; Respiratory Exercises; Ambulation; Cardiomyopathy

References

1. Hershberger RE., et al. “Dilated cardiomyopathy: overview”. GeneReviews^® [Internet]. Seattle (WA): University of Washington (2007).
2. Alraies MC., et al. “Adult heart transplant: indications and outcomes”. Journal of Thoracic Disease 8 (2014): 1120-1128.
3. De Gasperi A., et al. “Pulmonary complications in patients receiving a solid-organ transplant”. Current Opinion in Critical Care 4 (2014): 411-419.
4. Camkiran Firat A., et al. “Early postoperative pulmonary complications after heart transplantation”. Transplantation Proceedings 4 (2015): 1214-1216.
5. Massimiliano Polastri CS. “Post-operative pleural effusion in a heart transplant recipient: A single case study of physiotherapy treatment”. International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation7 (2017).

Citation

Citation: Gurman Kaur and Satish Kumar Anumula. “Post Operative Pleural Effusion and its PT Management- A Case Study".Acta Scientific Orthopaedics 3.8 (2020): 33-36.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Gurman Kaur and Satish Kumar Anumula. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.