Respiratory muscle strength effect on linear and nonlinear heart rate variability parameters in COPD patients.

Introduction: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is recognized as a multisystemic inflammatory disease associated with extrapulmonary comorbidities, including respiratory muscle weakness and cardiovascular and cardiac autonomic regulation disorders. We investigated whether alterations in respiratory muscle strength (RMS) would affect cardiac autonomic modulation in COPD patients.

Methods: This study was a cross-sectional study done in ten COPD patients affected by moderate to very severe disease.