Longevity of pulmonary rehabilitation benefit for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease-health care utilisation in the subsequent 2 years.

Background: The primary aim was to determine the healthcare utilisation benefits including respiratory-related hospital admissions, hospital admission days and emergency department presentations in the 0-12 and 12-24 months postpulmonary rehabilitation compared with the 12 months preprogramme.

Methods: An observational, data-linkage design of 11 standardised pulmonary rehabilitation programmes were used. All programmes were 8 weeks in duration with two supervised exercise sessions per week and were required to use the national pulmonary rehabilitation recommendations with regard to programme organisation, exercise training guidelines and multidisciplinary education.

A simple clinical measure of quadriceps muscle strength identifies responders to pulmonary rehabilitation.

The aim was to determine if baseline measures can predict response to pulmonary rehabilitation in terms of six-minute walk distance (6MWD) or quality of life. Participants with COPD who attended pulmonary rehabilitation between 2010 and 2012 were recruited. Baseline measures evaluated included physical activity, quadriceps strength, comorbidities, inflammatory markers, and self-efficacy.

Metabolic disease and participant age are independent predictors of response to pulmonary rehabilitation.

Purpose: The study aims were (1) to determine whether baseline measures-including the Body Mass Index, Airflow Obstruction, Dyspnea, and Exercise Capacity (BODE) index; Age, Dyspnea, and Airflow Obstruction (ADO) index; physical activity; comorbidities (cardiac, metabolic, or musculoskeletal disease); and the number of hospitalizations over the previous 12 months-can predict responders in 6-minute walk distance (6MWD) following pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) and (2) to determine whether different methods in defining improvement in 6MWD affected identifying responders to PR.

Methods: All participants with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who attended PR at our institution between 2004 and 2009 were evaluated. A participant was classified as a responder with improvement in 6MWD (≥25 m or ≥2 SD of this dataset coefficient of repeatability).

Performance-based criteria are used in participant selection for pulmonary rehabilitation programs.

Objective: To determine the participant entry criteria used by Australian-based pulmonary rehabilitation programs and the factors that influence selection.

Methods: This cross-sectional observational study invited all program coordinators listed on the Australian Lung Foundation's pulmonary rehabilitation database in November 2009.

Results: The response rate was 40.