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New study shows pulmonary rehab improves exercise tolerance, quality of life for COPD patients
Those suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often complain that exercise is too exhausting and leaves them breathless.
An article in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reports that supervised exercise through pulmonary rehabilitation can actually reduce their feelings of breathlessness, increase their tolerance for exercise and improve their quality of life.
The article’s lead author is Richard Casaburi, PhD, MD, a senior investigator at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed). He directs the institute’s Rehabilitation Clinical Trials Center, a facility that focuses on COPD research. Dr. Casaburi surveyed previous studies on pulmonary rehabilitation for COPD and found that supervised exercise therapy improves aerobic function of the muscles, which helps reduce the breathlessness that is common in COPD.
