Search

Background and Objectives: Improving extrapulmonary symptoms in COPD through respiratory muscle training can help alleviate the burden of respiratory symptoms, reduce fatigue, and improve exercise capacity in patients with COPD. This, in turn, can enhance physical activity, balance, and gait, ultimately improving the overall quality of life for individuals with COPD. This study aimed to investigate the effects of respiratory muscle training on balance and gait in patients with moderate to severe COPD. Materials and Methods: We included 65 patients with moderate to severe COPD randomly assigned to either the pulmonary rehabilitation protocol group (PR) or the pulmonary rehabilitation and inspiratory muscle training group (PR + IMT) for three weeks. Patients performed a spirometry, maximal inspiratory and expiratory pressure (MIP/MEP), 6 min walking test (6MWT), activities-specific balance confidence (ABC) scale questionnaire, Berg Balance Scale (BBS), timed up and go test (TUG), and single-leg stance test (SLS). Results: Rehabilitation had a notable impact on MIP in Group 2 (PR + IMT), with a highly significant difference between pre- and post-rehabilitation distributions (p < 0.0001). At the same time, Group 1 (PR-only) showed no significant changes (p = 0.27). In Group 1 (Control), pre- and post-rehabilitation comparisons reveal slight non-significant changes for SLS EO (p = 0.16), ABC (p = 0.07), TUG (p = 0.06), and BBS (p = 0.13). In contrast, in Group 2 (Cases), there are significant improvements in all variables after rehabilitation compared to the pre-rehabilitation values: SLS EO (p < 0.0001), ABC (p < 0.0001), TUG (p < 0.0001), and BBS (p < 0.0001). Conclusions: Our research demonstrated that respiratory muscle training significantly positively impacts balance and gait performance among patients with moderate to severe COPD compared to a control group.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an increasingly frequent disorder that is likely to become the third leading cause of morbidity worldwide. It significantly degrades the quality of life of patients affected and poses a significant financial burden to the healthcare systems providing treatment and rehabilitation. Consequently, our study's purpose was to compare conventional inpatient pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) with virtual (online) PR using a mobile phone application. During a three-month period, two groups of patients followed the research protocol by participating in a pulmonary rehabilitation program administered and supervised by a physical therapist five times per week. A number of respiratory variables were examined before and after the test. At the end of the study period, a total of 72 patients completed the rehabilitation in the inpatient group, respectively 58 in the online group. It was observed that post-test comparison between patients undergoing the traditional and online rehabilitation methods did not show any significant differences. However, the calculated mean differences between pre-test and post-test results were significantly higher in favor of the virtual method. The most significant variations were encountered in maximal inspiratory pressure (MIP) (6.6% vs. 8.5%, p-value < 0.001), 6-min walking test (6MWT) (6.7% vs. 9.4%, p-value < 0.001), and COPD assessment test (CAT) values (4.8 vs. 6.2, p-value < 0.001), respectively. However, the maximal expiratory pressure (MEP) variation was significantly higher in patients undergoing the traditional rehabilitation method, from an average of 4.1% to 3.2% (p-value < 0.001). In this preliminary study, the online pulmonary rehabilitation program proved non-inferiority to the traditional method, with significantly better results in several measurements. Additional studies using larger cohorts of patients and longer exposure to the online rehabilitation program are required to validate these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]