The objective was to evaluate the effect of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) in the respiratory rate (RR), tidal volume (TV) and minute volume (MV) in patients after bariatric surgery. Ten patients with mean age 29.8±8 years, classified as morbidly obese (BMI 47.5±7.2 kg/m²) who received CPAP from 8 to 10 cmH2O, for 30 minutes, once a day for two consecutive days, in the post-bariatric surgery were studied. Before and after applying CPAP were measured RR and the MV through the ventilometer, and indirectly the TV were calculated . The Shapito-Wilk was applied to check the normality of data, and then the measures were compared using the Student's t-test and Mann-Whitney test. Analyses were processed using the SPSS 7.5 considering the 5% level of significance. There was a significant increase for the following variables in the first and second days of application: RR=20±6 breathing/min versus 26±7 breathing/min (p=0.009), and RR=22±7 breathing/min versus 26±8 breathing/min (p=0,007); MV=9.57±2.75 L versus 12.39±4.18 L (p=0.041), and MV=9.71±2.52 L versus 11,18±2.96 L (p=0.037). The values of TV=360±157,59 mL versus 440±69,18 mL (p=0,21), and 401±90,46 mL versus 416±78,04 mL (p=0,18) did not differ significantly when comparing pre- and post-application in two days therapy. Thus, it was concluded that CPAP can be applied as an auxiliary respiratory therapy in the treatment of patients in post-bariatric surgery for the maintenance of TV, but care should be taken during application, there may be increased RR.
morbid obesity; bariatric surgery; continuous positive airway pressure; physical therapy specialty
