Goldbart A.1, Sabo
E.2, Tal A.1.
¹ Pediatric Department, Soroka Medical Center, Ben-Gurion University,
Beer-Sheva, Israel.
² Rapaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa, Israel
Purpose
- A previous report
by Berkovits (Netherlands J. Med. 1999; 54(suppl) s65, a129), showed
significant improvement of %SaO2 as well as %FVC and %FEV1, in CF patients
attending a health camp
lasting 3 weeks, at the Dead Sea. - This work extended the study, and evaluated lung function and body weight changes for longer follow up.
Methods
- We evaluated 94
CF patients from Europe who spent 3 weeks at the Dead Sea from 1997
to 2000.
- Participants were given daily chest physiotherapy, and participated in a variety of outdoor activities and enjoyed a high caloric diet.
- Patients lung functions were evaluated a week prior to arrival (Pre), before departure (Dep), and 2 months after the 3 weeks of rehabilitation (Post).
- Evaluation of body weight changes were measured a week prior to camp and at 1, 2 and 3 months after the camp.
- Data was available only for 35 Patients who underwent pre-and post camp (2 months) lung function tests as well, and they were included in the final data analysis.
- All data were analysed by ANOVA test for repetitive measurements, p-value was considered significant when less then 0.05.
Results
Spirometry values were analysed for 35 patients:
Fig. 1- Comparison of FVC (% predicted) detected an improvement of 3.9% between values obtained pre and post camp, which was however not significant (p=0.19).
Fig. 2- FEV1 values improved significantly (Pre, Dep, Post). The improvement
was detected between Pre versus Post (8.2%), and Dep Versus Post (7.5%)
measures.
Fig. 3- %SaO2 values comparison (Pre, Dep, Post) also improved significantly.
The significant differences were detected between: Pre versus Dep (1.8%),
and Dep versus Post (1.3%).
Fig. 4- Body weight increased significantly in 24 patients, pre and up
to 3 months after the camp. The mean weight gain was 5%.
Fig. 5- Weight measured upon arrival and departure, for 89 patients showed an average improvement of 1.9% (p<0.05, by t-test).
Conclusion:
- We demonstrated
a significant improvement in FEV1 as well as SaO2, lasting at least
two months after patients returned to their countries of origin, after
a 3 weeks stay at a rehabilitation camp at
the Dead Sea area. - While at camp
the patients significantly gained weight, and continued this trend for
at least 3 months.
