The impact of long-term telerehabilitation or unsupervised training on physical activity in people with COPD

Despite the benefits of pulmonary rehabilitation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), many patients do not access or complete pulmonary rehabilitation, and long-term maintenance of exercise is difficult. In a recently published international randomized controlled trial, 120 people with COPD were assigned to three groups (telerehabilitation, unsupervised training, control) and followed up for 2 years. Telerehabilitation consisted of individualized treadmill training at home supervised by a physiotherapist and self-management. The unsupervised training group performed unsupervised treadmill exercise at home. The control group received standard care. Primary analyses demonstrated that long-term telerehabilitation and unsupervised training at home were both successful in reducing hospital readmissions as well as improving and maintaining clinically significant improvements in exercise capacity. The aim of this project is to undertake a secondary analysis to compare the impact of long-term telerehabilitation, unsupervised treadmill training and standard care on physical activity outcomes in people with COPD.