Medication Analysis

Table 4a gives the percentage of patients in the whole group who stopped, decreased, increased, or did not change their needed dosage of drugs during the period of follow-up; 69, 72, and 66% of patients had stopped or reduced tablets, injections, and cortisone, respectively.

Table 4b shows the results of the medication analysis using Mc Nemar's test for repeated observations. A chi-squared value above 10 is considered highly significant on this nonparametric test. Here we find that participants in all three groups regular, irregular, and discontinued-have significantly reduced their intake of oral medication.

In the regular group, even the need for cortisone and parenteral bronchodilator decreased. In the irregular group, the reduction in cortisone and injections is not significant, but in the discontinued group, the cortisone dosages have been reduced significantly. These results reinforce those presented in Tables 3a, b, and c using the t-test.

Thus, we find that this test clearly shows that the long-term requirement of oral medication decreases with either regular, irregular, or discontinued yoga practice, whereas to reduce the acuteness of the attacks that require parenteral medication one must be regular with his yoga practice.

PFR Analysis

We have observed highly significant improvements in the PFR values in all patients whether they were in the regular, irregular, or discontinued yoga group, as indicated in Table 3.

Table 5a shows the distribution of patients in different categories of f values for PFR. The f values refer to the ratio of the PFR observed to PFR predicted. The predicted PFR was obtained

Table 4a. Medication Analysis for the Entire Group^a

from Kamat's South Indian norms of respiratory function tests (16). The value f = 1 indicates a normal airway; the less the f value the greater the airway obstruction. We notice that more and more patients are moving toward normalcy after yoga, as demonstrated by increasing numbers in f categories of 0.75 and above and decreasing numbers in f categories less than 0.75. This trend is depicted clearly in Figure 1.

It can be seen from Table 5a that initially 191 patients had f values greater than 0.75 (Nf >0.75) while after the yoga practice 293 patients reached 75% of their predicted normal PFR value. This amounts to an increase from 27 to 49% in the ratio

Nf > 0.75 Nf < 0.75

before and after yoga practice, respectively

Table 4b. Medication Analysis and Regular of Yoga Practice^a


Table 5a. Distribution of Patients in f - values for PFR^a

Distribution of patients (N) in f categories before and after yoga. The trend of increasing number of patients moving towards normalcy (f > 0.75) after yoga is shown. Ratio of Nf < 0.75 to Nf < 0.75 before yoga = 27% and after yoga = 49%.

Table 5b shows the PER analysis done by using the f values of PFR Mc Nemar's test for repeated observations. Here we notice that the chi -squared values have reached significant levels in the regular group. Thus, we may derive that the irregular practitioners, although showing significant improvement in PFR values, have not to a significant extent come up to their predicted normal levels.

Table 5b. PFR Analysis - f Balue^a