title: Pulmonary rehabilitation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in India. Drug treatment alone does not optimize therapy. Pulmonary rehabilitation has been found to improve the physical efficiency of COPD patients. Therefore, we evaluated the effect of domiciliary pulmonary rehabilitation programme in patients of COPD.
  
  
  METHODS
  Forty patients of stable COPD having severe airflow obstruction were included in the study. They were divided into control and experimental groups randomly. Rehabilitation included walking, breathing exercises, postural drainage, controlled coughing and changes in life style activities. Exercises of 30 minutes duration were performed at home twice daily for four weeks supervision. Six-minute walking distance, forced expiratory volume in one seocond (FEV1) and various indices of chronic respiratory disease questionnaire (CRDQ) were measured in both experimental and control groups before and after completion of the study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the experimental group, after four weeks, the mean (+/- SD) difference in six-minute walking distance, dyspnoea, mastery, fatigue and emotion scores were 54.2 (26.7) meters, 0.96 (0.26), 0.89 (0.44), 0.90 (0.40) and 0.91 (0.32) respectively. Changes in all these parameters were statistically significant (p < 0.001) as compared to the control group. There was no significant change in FEV1.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It was concluded that domiciliary pulmonary rehabilitation for four weeks results in significant improvement in the quality of life and exercise tolerance, even without improvement in FEV1.
authors.affiliation: Pulmonary Division, Department of Medicine, SMS Medical College, Jaipur, India. drvirendrasingh@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Virendra
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: Dinesh Chand
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Khandelwal
authors.forename: Rakesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Khandelwal
authors.forename: Surendra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abusaria
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005081:Exercise Therapy; D017079:Exercise Tolerance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008168:Lung / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D029424:Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000534:rehabilitation*