There are many benefits to exercise. Unfortunately when people develop severe lung disease it makes it difficult to exercise. Pulmonary rehabilitation programs offer people an individualized set of exercises, supervised exercise sessions and educational classes to improve their activity level. In addition there is counseling about diet, smoking cessation and other aspects of healthy lifestyle.

This week we reviewed the study which examined the effects of a pulmonary rehabilitation program in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). IPF is a severe progressive lung disease with average survival 3-5 years after the diagnosis. In fact 6 patients in the study (out of 163 participants) died before completing pulmonary rehabilitation.

However even in this group of severely ill patients, supervised exercises were proven to be beneficial leading to improved quality of life, better exercise tolerance, measured by distance of walking in a standardized test (incremental shuttle walk test), and longer survival. 

Published: October 2021

For the full article, follow the link:

https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692(21)04208-2/fulltext