Assessment of Fitness and Exercise Tolerance of COPD Patients in Correlation with Their Life Style

Abstract

The nutritional status of patients with COPD has been considered an important factor that influences the experiencing symptoms and prognosis of the disease (Ferreira et al., 2005). Approximately 20–40% of COPD patients have been reported as being underweight or malnourished (Raguso & Luthy, 2011). Pulmonary system abnormalities certainly limit exercise in patients with COPD (Amann et al., 2010); however, peripheral muscle abnormalities also negatively impact exercise performance and activities of daily living (Richardson et al., 2004). COPD is a progressive, chronic disease, in which the patient’s nutritional status is critical for optimizing outcomes. Malnutrition coupled with advancing COPD can lead to worsening respiratory muscle function, dyspnea, and exercise capacity (Anker et al., 2009). The study was conducted upon fifty COPD participants diagnosed according to GOLD (2010) with a confirmed diagnosis by history, physical examination, radiological and spirometric data (post-bronchodilator forced expiratory volume in the first second to forced vital capacity ratio (FEV1/FVC) ≤0.70) when they were considered to be in a clinically stable condition. We recruited them from the pulmonary outpatient clinic of the Chest department at Ain Shams University Hospital, as well as COPD inpatients at the time of discharge. participates had completed questionnaire to assess their nutrition, their life style as regard daily activities, and then performing the cycle ergometry CPET.