Benefits of a community-hospital pulmonary rehabilitation program.

Pulmonary rehabilitation can be a beneficial and cost-effective mode of therapy for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). At St Joseph's Hospital in Stockton, California, we established a multi-disciplinary, 10-week program combining outpatient education with aerobic exercise to promote both improved subjective well-being and increased exercise tolerance in patients with COPD. We studied 74 patients who had completed the program at least 1 year before the study began. Subjective data about the program were collected by use of a questionnaire. Changes in physical work capacity were measured by use of stress tests performed before and after the program was completed. Of the 57 patients responding to the questionnaire, most felt that the program had improved the quality of their lives. After the program was completed, significant decreases were seen in oxygen consumption, minute ventilation, and heart rate during treadmill exercise. The number of days of hospitalization for the group decreased from 497 in the year before completing the program to 34 the year after.