Abstract

Home-based pulmonary rehabilitation can decrease symptoms in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of a home-based pulmonary rehabilitation by instructive multimedia in the form of videos and flip charts on clinical symptoms and exercise performance in COPD patients. An eight-week home-based pulmonary rehabilitation program was performed with twenty COPD patients older than 60 years of age with moderate to severe stages. They were separated into two groups: a multimedia group (n = 10) and a control group, which was only provided with telephone monitoring (n = 10). Clinical symptoms were measured by using the clinical COPD questionnaire (CCQ), and exercise performance was measured using a six-minute walk test (6MWT) and an upper-lower limb muscle strengthening test. After 8 weeks, the results showed that both groups showed a statistically significant decrease in the CCQ (p < 0.05). The multimedia group showed a statistically significant increase in the lower-limb muscle strengthening (p < 0.05), while the control group was not found to show a statistically significant increase in the lower-limb muscle strengthening. Therefore, a pulmonary rehabilitation program using multimedia at home can lessen symptoms and improve exercise performance in COPD patients.