American Thoracic Society Journal news tips for July 2005 (fi...( utum. Long-term smoking is the root ca...),Health

One of the benefits of pulmonary rehabilitation is improved function capacity, as measured by the 6-minute walk test. Patients who underwent rehabilitation, including exercise training, improved their results by a distance of 54 meters (about 48.6 yards).

Also, the authors point out that improved health-related quality of life is also observed even in the absence of clinically significant improvements in exercise capacity.

Although exercise reconditioning is the key to a successful rehabilitation program, exercise training programs need to be adapted to the individual limitations of the COPD patient, taking into consideration cardiovascular, pulmonary, and skeletal muscle limitations.

They note that exercises should be performed 3 to 5 days per week at an intensity above 40 to 85 percent of the oxygen uptake reserve (the difference between resting and peak oxygen intake) for more than 20 minutes per session.

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Contact: Cathy Carlomagno
ccarlomagno@thoracic.org
212-315-6442
American Thoracic Society
1-Jul-2005