Authors' Reply

Sonographic evaluation of diaphragmatic function during breathing control

“…The technique has been reported to be useful in monitoring of the respiratory progress of patients with diaphragmatic weakness or paralysis (Matamis et al 2013), measurement of diaphragm muscle thickness (Baldwin et al 2011;Baria et al 2014), and evaluation of diaphragmatic function in patients on mechanical ventilation (Lerolle et al 2009;Kim et al 2011) and in people with neuromuscular disease (Sarwal et al 2013). More recently, several studies have reported sonographic evaluation of diaphragmatic function in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (Paulin et al 2007;Aktürk et al 2013;Smargiassi et al 2014;Scheibe et al 2015, Rocha et al 2015. However, sonographic evaluation of the effect of the BC technique used by physiotherapists globally, on management of exertional breathlessness, has not been reported.…”