Tilt training helps prevent fainting

Tilt training helps prevent fainting

AgenciesUpdated: Wednesday, May 29, 2019, 12:55 AM IST
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Washington: In a recent research it has been found out that tilt training prevents fainting. Besides, the training improved quality of life, reduced the worry and fear about future fainting and enabled patients to return to work.

“Our study included teachers who fainted in the classroom and had to quit work,” said study author Dr Sergio Laranjo, Santa Marta Hospital, Lisbon, Portugal.

“None of the conventional treatments had helped, but after tilt training they stopped fainting and were able to resume their jobs.” Syncope affects one in two people during their lifetime and is one of the leading emergency care conditions. For some with recurrent episodes it is life-limiting – they end up in emergency or admitted to hospital, and fear stops them working and socialising.

Fainting is caused by either a fall in blood pressure and/or number of heart beats. The most common triggers are standing in a hot, crowded space or sitting up too quickly. Some patients have no warning signs, and medications or devices do not help.

A tilt training programme was designed to retrain the autonomic nervous system (which controls heart rate and blood pressure) to respond correctly to moving to an upright position. The response of both the autonomic nervous system and cardiovascular system improved – for example, blood pressure did not drop when moving upright and cardiac output (the volume of blood pumped with each beat) normalised.

But, more importantly, an average of 5.5 years after the programme, 86 per cent of patients had not fainted again. In the rest (14per cent), average numbers of yearly faints (syncope) and presyncopal episodes (feeling faint) fell significantly by more than half – from five faints to less than two, and from more than 11 presyncopal episodes to less than five.

Twenty-five patients completed the “Impact of Syncope on Quality of Life” questionnaire before tilt training and six months afterwards.

It showed that tilt training was significantly associated with less worry, fear, and frustration related to fainting. “Patients were able to lead full, normal lives after the tilt training programme,”said Dr Laranjo. “Most participants were of working age – the average age was 46 – and could return to work.”
—ANI

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