TY - JOUR T1 - Preoperative physical therapy reduces risk of postoperative atelectasis and pneumonia in people undergoing elective cardiac surgery JF - Evidence Based Nursing JO - Evid Based Nurs SP - 13 LP - 14 DO - 10.1136/eb-2012-101199 VL - 17 IS - 1 AU - Elisabeth Westerdahl AU - Arne Tenling Y1 - 2014/01/01 UR - http://ebn.bmj.com/content/17/1/13.abstract N2 - Commentary on: Hulzebos EH, Smit Y, Helders PP, et al. Preoperative physical therapy for elective cardiac surgery patients. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2012;11:CD010118. Cardiac surgery patients are at risk of postoperative pulmonary complications. The incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications varies in the literature, because of inconsistent definitions for postoperative pulmonary complication. More large-scale randomised controlled trials are needed to determine the value of preoperative physical therapy in cardiac surgery patients. Postoperative pulmonary complications are a common cause of morbidity and mortality after cardiac surgery. The reasons for the lung function impairment are multifactorial and include anaesthesia, cardiopulmonary bypass, the surgery itself, analgesia and postoperative immobility. The reported incidence varies in the literature, depending on the specific criteria used for the definition of a postoperative pulmonary complication and the diagnostic techniques used to detect them. Efforts have been made to identify those patients who have a higher risk of … ER -