Airway Clearance

Airway clearance is encouraged to be incorporated into everyday family life. It is important to work together with your physiotherapist to decide what works best for you and your child.

Your physiotherapist will introduce different treatment techniques as your child develops.

As your child develops and becomes more active, getting ready to go to school, and might also be wanting to become more involved in their physiotherapy sessions (or at times less involved and resistant) it is helpful to have lots of different choices for airway clearance. You might also want to talk to your physiotherapist about the various options to combine airway clearance with inhalation therapy, or airway clearance with physical activity.

Here are some helpful resources for airway clearance techniques your physiotherapist may introduce to you during this age stage.

Just like brushing our teeth, airway clearance is encouraged every day. Your child might not need to cough during the session, they may not even experience any changes in their breathing and that is ok. The treatment is still helpful and doing something regularly will help maintain healthy lungs. 

When you clean your teeth you don’t see large chunks of plaque fall into the sink, but if you don’t clean your teeth regularly then when you visit the dentist they can see gradual damage over time. 

Airway clearance is the same for your child’s lungs. It is a daily clean of the airways to keep the bugs away. 

Fun activities able to be used as part of the daily airway clearance routine:

• blowing bubbles in the bath
• blowing bubbles with a bubble wand
• using party blowers, or whistles, or musical toys like a recorder to help them practice breathing in and out at different levels
• Bath PEP  
• Bubble PEP 

Remember to try and make it fun, have music on, play outside, or laugh, and do it regularly.