Introduction:

pulmonary rehabilitation is a multidisciplinary approach that improves symptoms and decreases the impact of lung disease in everyday activities.

Objective:

to determine the effect of a 4-phase pulmonary rehabilitation program, performed in an outpatient center, on exercise tolerance and quality of life in patients with obstructive, restrictive and pulmonary vascular disease.

Materials and methods:

prospective study in 57 patients that completed a 4-month pulmonary rehabilitation program. At the beginning and at the end of the program, a 6-minute walk and the Saint George quality of life test were carried out. For the evaluation of the difference of medians between groups, the non-parametric Wilcoxon test was used.

Results:

the median age was 69 years, 50.9% were female and after the program an increase in the distance traveled in the 6-minute walk was observed, with a difference of 15,6 meters (p=0,07). The Saint George quality of life test at the end of the program showed a decrease in the symptoms domain [18,5% (p<0,01)], activity [4,1% (p<0,01)], impact [5,4% (p<0,01)] and total [7,6% (p<0,01)].

Discussion:

it was evidenced that the respiratory pathologies achieve a stabilization of symptoms with the pulmonary rehabilitation, findings congruent to those reported by other authors.

Conclusion:

pulmonary rehabilitation improves the exercise tolerance and the quality of life in terms of reduction of symptoms and the impact of the disease in patients with pulmonary disease. MÉD.UIS. 2018;31(3):27-36.

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