Home-Based Physical Activity program for COPD Patients: can it improve dyspnoea, exercise tolerance and quality of life?

Abstract Research question: Home-Based Physical Activity program for COPD Patients: can it improve dyspnoea, exercise tolerance and quality of life?Background: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a common, preventable and treatable condition. Its treatment comprises multiple aspects. Most evidence points out pulmonary rehabilitation as the most effective intervention for improving dyspnoea, general health status and exercise tolerance. In Portugal, the existing programs are scarce, mainly developed in hospitals, with only 1% of candidate patients having effective access to them.Goals: To develop an efficient and low cost education and physical activity home-based program for COPD patients, using easily accessible resources.Methodology: A 12-months intervention program. The target population comprises COPD patients of USF do Minho, Braga, in any degree of severity, with stable disease, symptomatic or not, regardless of functional limitation, age or gender. The program will be divided into 4 stages: 1. Information sessions, where a passport with general information, the home-based exercise program, and a section for records will be provided. 2. Patient assessment, where anamnesis, objective examination, spirometry, 6-min gait test, “get up and go” test and questionnaires (mMRC, CAT, Saint George's Respiratory Questionnaire, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and FACIT will be carried out. 3. Teaching and training of the home-based exercise program. This program comprises a warm-up phase, an aerobic training phase, a muscle endurance training and a stretching phase. 4. Patients will be monitored through phone contact once a week, in the first 4 weeks, and personally re-evaluated (repeating the assessments described in step 2) at 2, 6 and 12 months. Data will be treated using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences® program.Questions to discuss: If unsuccessful, the major difficulty will be discern whether it is due to the inefficiency of the program or to poor adhesion to the home-based physical activityKey words: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease; Pulmonary rehabilitation; Primary Care Declaration of Interest The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work References and Clinical Trial Registry Information