Chest
Clinical InvestigationsCOPDMechanisms of Improvement in Exercise Capacity Using a Rollator in Patients With COPD
Section snippets
Patients and Design
Fifteen clinically stable patients with COPD who met the following criteria were studied: (1) no locomotory, neurologic condition, or disability limiting the ability to walk; (2) no need for oxygen supplementation during the 6MWT; (3) familiarity with the 6MWT; and (4) naivety to the use of walking aids. After the explanation of all procedures, informed consent was obtained. Subjects performed three 6MWTs. The first 6MWT was a practice walk with the rollator (Rollmobil 540; Ortopedia; Kiel,
Results
Fifteen patients were screened and tested. One patient was excluded from the analysis, as we failed to measure the physiologic variables during the walking tests due to technical problems. Baseline characteristics of the remaining 14 patients are shown in Table 1. On average, patients showed moderate-to-severe airflow obstruction, normal body mass index, and reduced Dlco. One patient had mild COPD, five patients had moderate COPD, six patients had severe COPD, and two patients had very severe
Discussion
This study confirms that the use of a rollator enables the most impaired patients to increase walking distance. In addition, this is the first study to show that the variation in walking distance was explained by changes in ventilatory capacity and/or walking efficiency.
The magnitude of the overall increase in walking distance is in accordance with previous findings.678 In our study, patients showed a median increase in the 6MWT of 27 m when using the rollator. This improvement slightly exceeds
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank Hilde Heyvaert, PT, from the UZ Gasthuisberg Respiratory Rehabilitation Division, for the help in the assessments; and Viasys, MEDA, Aartselaar, Belgium, for technical support.
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Cited by (0)
This study was supported by FWD Levenslijn grant 7.0007.00.
Dr. Troosters is a postdoctoral fellow of the FWO-Vlaanderen.
Dr. Pitta is supported by CAPES/Brasil.