BACKGROUND: Bronchial asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the respiratory tract. Its physiotherapy treatment aims to reduce the frequency of asthmatic spells and the intensity of symptoms. The methods employed act mainly through the education of the patient in the correct handling of the asthma attacks and the improvement of the pulmonary elasticity. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this review was to critically evaluate the available evidence on the effectiveness of different physiotherapy interventions in asthmatic patients. METHODS: To achieve this, the search was focused on scientific databases with the key words Physiotherapy and Asthma. The search was limited to studies that evaluated the effects of a physiotherapy intervention in patients diagnosed with bronchial asthma. RESULTS: 1,794 articles were located and after the inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, 12 studies were analyzed. Of these, 5 evaluated a respiratory reeducation intervention, 4 manual therapy techniques, 2 interventions based on therapeutic exercise and 1 relaxation techniques. CONCLUSIONS: The results obtained revealed that physiotherapy provides a wide range of treatment options for bronchial asthma and all of them provide positive results against the exclusive application of pharmacological treatment.

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