Role of rehabilitation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients in intensive care unit

ABSTRACT

The COPD are the most common chronic lung disease and the major impetus for the development of pulmonary rehabilitation program. Poor endurance, dyspnea, and deconditioning are the hallmarks of the presenting symptoms. The key components of pulmonary rehabilitation are education, exercise training, psychosocial/behavioral intervention and outcome assessment. The present study was designed to study the effects of pulmonary rehabilitation on patient of COPD and compare between comprehensive rehabilitation program and progressive ambulation as regard some physiologic variables. This study included eighty COPD patients recovering from an episode of acute respiratory failure and admitted to RICU of Zagazig University Hospital. All of them fulfilled the American Thoracic Society criteria of COPD 1995, with the age ranging from 51 to 80 years. Evaluating measures were done as early as possible at admission, discharge and after 3 months and they include arterial blood gases [ABG], pulmonary ventilatory tests [PVT], maximal inspiratory pressure [MIP], visual analog scale [VAS] and 6 min walking distance [6 m WD]. Rehabilitation program were usually begun as early as possible for clinically stable patients, it consists of daily session 30-45 min for each and of four different steps of increasing difficulty. Our results showed that pulmonary rehabilitation is of great beneficial effects for critically ill COPD patients admitted to RICU and early intervention give better results. Also comprehensive program was superior to ambulation program