Ludhiana, August 9
“Yoga, especially Pranayam, has helped my patients tremendously. Quite often, patients do not get surgery done when the doctor first recommends it. A delay leads to poor heart and lung function, and consequently, these patients may not do well after surgery. They have varying degrees of heart failure. After surgery, they do not breathe fully, leading to a fall in oxygen levels in the blood which can result in the patient being put on a ventilator and delayed recovery after open heart surgery.”
These observations were made by Dr Harinder Singh Bedi, a noted cardiac surgeon and Chairman, Cardiac Sciences at the Ludhiana Mediciti Hospital here last evening during an interactive session on ‘Yoga and Pranayam’, organised by the Patanjali Yog Peeth.
Dr Bedi, himself an ardent follower of yoga, having realised that a pre-operative teaching of yogic breathing techniques could help his patients after surgery, had asked Mr Varinder Singh, Mr Gupta and Ms Sadhana Makkar of Patanjali Yog Peeth to give basic training of yogic breathing exercise to his patients. The programme, which started two months back, had yielded excellent results.
Speaking to a group of patients and their attendants during a training session of yoga, Dr Bedi observed that post-surgery, patients were breathing much better and weaned off the ventilator faster. “They are able to clear all their secretions completely.”
He explained that one of the most common complications after any surgery was atelectasis and consolidation of the lung (collapse and infection of a lung). The incidence of this condition after yoga training was imparted to the patients had been completely eliminated.
He said the earlier apprehension that the breathing techniques would impose a strain on the heart were also dispelled. “We had started very cautiously but the results are simply amazing. There are no acute hemo-dynamically detrimental changes to the heart, on the contrary the changes are beneficial.”
Dr Bedi informed that every patient, after surgery, had a beat-to-beat monitoring of his heart function. “We were pleasantly surprised to see that with each breathing exercise, every beat of the heart was stronger. Yoga may reduce the pro-inflammatory state, associated with cardiovascular disease and also reduces the neuro-humoural effects of stress.”
Another aspect of yoga —that of positive imagination — had also shown good results, claimed Dr Bedi. In the course of repetitive counselling sessions, the patients were told to visualise themselves as getting better. Those, who had been refused surgery in most centres, were already in a state of depression and negative thoughts. With yogic counselling and meditation, such patients were able to achieve a positive state of mind.
Dr Bedi said one of his former colleagues - Dr S.C. Manchanda, former head of Cardiology at AIIMS, New Delhi, had earlier shown that with yoga and lifestyle modification, one could reverse heart disease in the long run. While similar studies had shown equal results, especially on stabilisation of blood pressure and lowering of cholesterol, the present observations related to effect of yoga on those undergoing open heart surgery were positively encouraging.
