Effectiveness of repeated courses of pulmonary rehabilitation on functional exercise capacity in patients with COPD
Abstract：Objective To determine whether an as-needed repeated pulmonary rehabilitation(PR)intervention produces a clinically important improvement in exercise capacity.Methods The study included a retrospective analysis of characteristics and 6-minute walk distance(6MWD)test in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD)who completed PR. Data were abstracted from all patients with COPD completing 2 courses of rehabilitation and those of randomly sampled patients completing only 1 course of PR. Results We identified 37 repeaters and selected 39 non-repeaters for analysis. We observed no significant differences between 2 groups with respect to age,FEV1 percent predicted,gender,initial 6MWD,improvement in 6MWD,or the percentage of patients achieving the minimal important difference(MID)of≥35 m with the completion of the first rehabilitation.The time between the first and second PR interventions was a mean of 30.00 ± 18.00 months. Repeating patients had a decrease of 55.48 ± 19.02 m in the 6MWD at the beginning of the second rehabilitation course compared with the end of the first intervention(P <0.05). In total, 64.86% of repeating patients achieved the MID in the 6MWD at the end of the second course of PR. Those who achieved the MID in the 6MWD during the second course of rehabilitation also tended to have attained greater improvement in this outcome during the first course(P < 0.05). Conclusion Two-thirds of patients with COPD undergoing repeat PR experience significant improvement in exercise capacity.Offering PR to patients with COPD on an as-needed basis appears to be beneficial even after a prolonged period of time between the interventions.
Keywords：COPDRepeated pulmonary rehabilitationExercise capacity
Publication Date：2018-01-01
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：3( 141-143 )