For patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, healing from home may be as good as receiving treatment in hospital, according to new research.
"We know that pulmonary rehab is a highly effective treatment for COPD because it improves exercise capacity and symptoms and keeps people out of the hospital," Anne Holland, PhD, professor of physiotherapy at Alfred Health and La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, said in a statement. "But less than 10 percent of all COPD patients in developed countries enter a pulmonary rehab program."
This stems from a lack of adequate medical reimbursement and programs for COPD treatment, according to Dr. Holland. To test outcomes between center- and home-based programs, a research team created an 8-week protocol for COPD home rehab.
Study participants in this program determined their own level of exercise and had a weekly call with a clinician to review their progress and motivate them to focus on improving. Hospital-based participants performed group exercise and had educational sessions twice a week.
The researchers found that both costs and outcomes for the programs were essentially the same, whether at-home or in-hospital. Neither metric produced a significant difference, but neither group retained their fitness improvements, as was expected based on prior COPD research.