An evaluation of two approaches to exercise conditioning in pulmonary rehabilitation for COPD patients-A comparative study

To compare the effectiveness of two forms of exercise training in pulmonary rehabilitation for COPD patients

A prospective, randomized 8 week study

A hospital-based outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation program.

30 patients (15 patients in each group) with COPD who were referred for pulmonary rehabilitation.

We compared the short-term effectiveness of a high-intensity shuttle walking endurance program with a low-intensity, multicomponent calisthenics program for the rehabilitation of patients with COPD. The high-intensity group trained using the Shuttle Walking. The low-intensity group performed classroom exercises for approximately 30 min per session. For both groups, twice-weekly sessions were held for 8 weeks. The primary outcome measure was Quality of Life, measured using the Clinical COPD Questionnaire and Rate of perceived Exertion using Borg Scale.

Both groups showed significant post rehabilitation improvement in exertional and overall dyspnea, functional performance, and health status. Patients in the low-intensity group showed greater increases in endurance and greater reductions in exertional dyspnea, whereas those in the highintensity group showed moderate increases in endurance and exertional dyspnea.

It has been concluded that both the high intensity training and low intensity training showed improvement in quality of life, but low intensity training show marked improvement in terms of exertional dyspnea and quality of life as this training is easy to perform and less expensive.