The effects of unsupported arm exercise in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease:a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trails / 中华护理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the effects of unsupported arm exercise in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.Methods Databases such as Cochrane Library,PubMed,EMbase,CNKI and WanFang were searched to recruit eligible randomized controlled trials.The effects of unsupported arm exercise was determined by meta-analysis with RevMan 5.3 after data extraction and quality appraisal.Results Totally 11 RCTs were finally recruited.The results of meta-analysis supported the effectiveness of unsupported arm exercise on improving dyspnea in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease[WMD=-0.76,95％CI(-l.33,-0.20),P=0.008],as well as the effectiveness on enhancing upper arm activity [WMD=25.75,95％CI (10.45,41.05),P=0.0010] and exercise tolerance [WMD=33.98,95％CI (10.20,57.76),P=-0.005].While it failed to support the effectiveness on improving lung function and quality of life(P＞0.05).Conclusion Unsupported arm exercise is effective to improve dyspnea,enhance upper arm activity and exercise tolerance,and is worth introducing in rehabilitation exercise in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.However,the effects on lung function,quality of life are still inconclusive.Strict designed,multi-centered RCTs with large sample size are needed in the future to gain reliable effectiveness of unsupported arm exercise.