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The Vest

Question
It has been recommended to our daughter (15) at the last rehabilitation (Bad Sulza, Germany) the therapeutic system "The Vest". How is the opinion of the experts?
Does the insurance cover the costs? Does one have already experience with that?
Answer
Hello,
The vest has been developed in the USA and is at the moment very strongly advertised in Germany from different medical-devices companies. The costs are excessive and are covered only partly on request by the insurances. The aim of the vest-therapy is the liquefaction of secretions, however not the transport of (loosed) secretions. The vest is a device that similar to the percussion makes a dependency of the patient to a person resp. here to a device.

As a CF-physiotherapist I cannot see the benefit of the device, because it contradicts totally the approach of independence of the patient. A training of the breathing muscles and the promotion of the mobility of the thorax is dropped. These are elementary components for the performance of a physiologic breathing. All mentioned advantages are fullfilled by the autogenic drainage. Especially it supports the independence of the patient. The therapy can be done at any wished place. Of course it is a requirement that one has learned the autogenic drainage or can learn it at an expereienced physiotherapist.

Why the lung hospitals do recommend the vest for CF patients is not clear to me.
Adresses of CF-physiotherapists you will find on the homepage of the Mukoviszidose e.V., Bonn under www.muko. info. (Germany).
Kathrin Könecke, Physiotherapist
06.07.2009