Title : Effect of six weeks resistance exercise delivered via telerehabilitation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Abstract:
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an irreversible lung disease and exercise intervention in pulmonary rehabilitation is one of the recommended interventions with the benefits of improving the exercise tolerance and the quality of life. Telerehabilitation has the reported vantages of higher satisfaction and better compliance that is consider to solve the low motivation of COPD and improve their engagement in exercise. Therefore, the present study investigated the effect of six-week resistance exercise delivered via telerehabilitation in patients with COPD. Patients diagnosed with COPD gave their consents to participate and chose to join the control (n=12) or telerehabilitation (n=13) group according to their willingness. Ten resistance exercises were designed for the present study and the 4 or 8 pounds of TheraBand were used to provide resistance. Participants in control group received conventional treatment and guidance of resistance exercise in papers. Participants in telerehabilitation group received guidance of resistance exercise in video form. The types and intensity of exercise would be modified weekly according to participants’ self- reported exertion. Measures of respiratory muscle force, muscle strength, functional performance and cardiopulmonary exercise test were used for assessment at baseline and post-test. The results revealed the significant improvements of maximal inspiratory pressure (change [?]=12.28±15.58, p=.015), maximal expiratory pressure (?=12.41±17.90, p=.028), handgrip strength (?=1.27±1.80, p=.026) and six minutes walking distance (?=26.08±41.27, p=.042) in the within-group comparison of telerehabilitation group. While the significant reduction of biceps strength (?= –2.16±3.36, p=.048) was found in the within-group comparison of control group. No significant difference was found in the result of cardiopulmonary exercise test. The current findings demonstrated that six-week resistance exercise conducting via telerehabilitation in patients with COPD has a sufficiently effect on improving the respiratory muscle strength, muscle strength of handgrip and functional performance. According, telerehabilitation could be considered for implementing into current pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD. Future studies can aim at investigating the effects of supervised or unsupervised telerehabilitation, or the impact of group telerehabilitation, to provide a more comprehensive approach of pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD.
