Home, hospital rehab work equally well for COPD: study

A home-based exercise program may help people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD to stay out of hospital, researchers in Quebec say.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder is a chronic lung disease that leads to lung damage and blockages of the airways. Its symptoms include a shortness of breath and fatigue.

Pulmonary rehabilitation is currently the best treatment to improve shortness of breath and quality of life for people with COPD, but only two per cent of patients in Canada are offered the treatment, according to the researchers.

The Canada-wide study of more than 250 patients compared hospital pulmonary training for people with COPD toa one-time session with a trainer at home. It was led by Dr. Jean Bourbeau, a respirologist at the McGill University Health Centre. The results were reported in Monday's online issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine

"Our results prove that home-based rehabilitation is just as effective and safe as that provided in hospitals," said study author Dr. Franois Maltais of the Hpital Laval.

"What's more, it is a real benefit to patients in comparison to a strictly pharmacological treatment."

Better quality of life

The exercise helped patients to recover and become fitter, with less shortness or breath, better tolerance of exercise, and better quality of life, the researchers said.

Aside from the economic benefits of the home-based treatment, the physical condition of patients improved to the point where they no longer needed as many hospital visits, the researchers said.

"We hope that this study will lead to the reorganization of the system so that as many patients as possible will be able to benefit from the program," Bourbeau said.

An estimated 1.5 million Canadians have been diagnosed with COPD, and another 1.6 million may have it but haven't yet been diagnosed, according to the Canadian Lung Association.

Lucien Comptois is one of those diagnosed with COPD. For the past nine months, he has been doing daily exercises that helearned the routine in a conventional hospital rehab program.

Comptois said it takes discipline to do the exercises every morning, but with the combination of exercises and medications, he is now able to shovel snow again. Even clearing of the car was too much for him last winter, he said.

The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Fonds de la recherche en sant du Qubec.