Chest physiotherapy effectiveness in infants with acute bronchiolitis

Acute bronchiolitis is a disorder most commonly caused in infants by viral lower respiratory tract infection, predominantly due to respiratory syncytial virus. Considered the most frequent cause of hospitalization among infants during winter, its management is still controversial. Physiotherapy is usually recommended for these patients. The clinical impression of physicians and physiotherapists is that manual techniques may potentially reduce the intensity of the acute illness in infants, but the real effectiveness remains unclear and untested. Besides, there are two major groups of manual techniques that compose chest physiotherapy – anglo-saxon and european - but neither was systematically compared. The aim of this trial is to investigate if there is a group of techniques that improves the clinical outcomes of infants with acute bronchiolitis.