Posicionamento corporal alterando a for？a muscular respiratória e o grau de obstru？？o em crian？as asmáticas

introduction: asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder which in severe cases changes the air flow, even in the period between episodes. objective: to evaluate, in asthmatic children under the effect of nebulized drug, the influence of upright sitting and leaning forward sitting postures, by assessing the intensity of the inspiratory and expiratory pressures (mip and mep) and peak expiratory flow (pef). methods: 57 children aged 6-12 years were divided in three groups: in group i, both postures, upright sitting and leaning forward sitting, were assessed without using nebulized drug; in group ii, only the upright sitting posture was assessed before and after nebulization; in group iii, only the leaning forward sitting posture was assessed before and after nebulization. the measures were repeated by assessing these children three times in a single session. a student t-test (pared) was used for comparisons. results: mip, mep and pef were higher in the leaning forward position indicating respective p values of p = 0.003, p = 0.006 and p = 0.000. after nebulization, the group ii demonstrated an increase of 44.16% in mip, 36.02% in pef and 34.88% in mep. after nebulization, the group iii showed a gain of 69.46% in mip, 60.87 in mep and 52.05% in pef. the difference between groups ii and iii were significant (p < 0.05) for levels of pef and mep, indicating that the group iii showed better performance during these tests. conclusion: it can be suggested that the leaning forward sitting posture provided an increased mechanical advantage for expiratory muscles, favoring the airflow during expiration and reducing the obstruction as evidenced by mep and pef increase.