THE EFFECTS OF A VERTICAL PULSATING STIMULATION ON APNEA IN PRETERM INFANTS.
Contributors: Catholic University of America.
Published: 1988
Number of pages: 111
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the vertical pulsating (VP) stimulation, a technique designed to stimulate the infant's vestibular-proprioceptive receptors, in preventing the apnea of prematurity. Infants born prematurely experience frequent pauses of breathing, apnea, as a result of neuronal immaturity of the respiratory control (RC) system. Stimulating vestibular system and proprioceptors has been suggested to enhance the afferent input to the RC and result in an increase in the RC activity, thus reducing apneic attacks.

Subjects were obtained from the intensive care nursery (ICN) in Thailand. Twenty-nine infants with apnea of prematurity ranging in postconceptual age from 29 to 35 weeks and in birth weight from 890 to 2,300 grams served as their own controls, off and on the VP stimulation. The 24-hour recording was divided into four time blocks with the infant being placed on the VP stimulation during alternate six-hour periods. During the time of VP stimulation, a child's blood pressure cuff was placed under the infant's upper thorax and connected to a ventilator pumping at an amplitude of 1 cm and a frequency of 16 $\pm$ 4 time per minute. The respiratory pattern and heart rate of all infants were monitored through the Infant Apnea monitor and nasal airflow thermistor and recorded by a four-channel recorder.

Of the 460 apneic episodes, 58% were central, 37% were obstructive, and 5% were mixed apnea. Findings indicated a significant reduction in the number of apneic episodes regardless of apnea types when placing apneic preterm infants on the VP stimulation from 348 apneic episodes to 112, p $<$.000. The average number of apneic episodes secondary to central apnea was significantly reduced from 9.04 to 1.15, p $<$.000 and 1.91 to.18 for mixed apnea, p $<$.000. The VP stimulation offered no benefits to obstructive apnea. No undesirable physiological changes in body temperature, oxygen saturation or heart rate were detected during the time of VP stimulation.

These findings provide a new nursing modality for infants experiencing apnea of prematurity secondary to central and mixed apnea. It provides an intervention that is practical and feasible to be done on any busy ICN and minimizes the care of infants as far as the time element.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-12, Section: B, page: 5229.

Thesis (D.N.SC.)--THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, 1988.

School code: 0043.