Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often have reduced muscle strength in their legs and chest compared to healthy people of the same age and sex. Weak muscles affect people's ability to carry-out activities of daily living, such as climbing stairs and washing dishes. Pulmonary rehabilitation is one of the most effective treatments to improve the muscle strength of people with COPD. However, it is difficult to interpret changes achieved in pulmonary rehabilitation due to lack of cut-off values to define a person's clinical improvement. We have estimated this cut-off value for leg extension and chest press muscle strength exercises in 51 people with COPD (44 men) with a mean age of 69 years old and moderate-to-severe disease. Participants performed 1 maximum repetition in a multigym, walked for 6 minutes in a 30-meter corridor and filled a scale about their shortness of breath, before and after a 12-week pulmonary rehabilitation program. We found that people who increased their leg muscle strength walked further on the 6 minutes test, but no relationships occurred between changes in leg strength and shortness of breath. Likewise, no relationships were found between changes in chest strength and changes on the 6 minutes test and shortness of breath. We concluded that improvements of 5.14kg for leg extension and of 6.25kg for chest press strength exercises might be clinical meaningful for patients after pulmonary rehabilitation. Studies enrolling more people are needed to consolidate these results.