CARDIAC Surgery PReoperative INspiratory muscle Training - CARDIAC SPRINT

The aim is to evaluate whether breathing strengthening exercises using a device called inspiratory muscle trainer (IMT) are safe and achievable in patients who wait in hospital to have their cardiac surgery on an urgent basis. We will also assess whether the breathing strengthening exercises will be acceptable by the patients and will result in improvement of outcomes following surgery. We propose to conduct a small-scale pilot randomised controlled trial to investigate this. Sixty study participants will be divided into two groups. On a random basis, they will either receive the current standard physiotherapy education before surgery (control group), or they will receive, in addition to standard physiotherapy education, twice daily breathing strength exercises under supervision with an IMT device until the time of surgery (intervention group). In this project we will record relevant patient medical information, measure patient frailty, gait speed, symptoms, maximal pressures generated during breathing, shortness of breath, pain and patient quality of life. We will also assess our training methods, complication rates, length of stay in hospital and patient experience measures after surgery. We will use these study findings to potentially design a larger study.