Role of Inpatient Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program in Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Patients: A Case Series

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) defined as a chronic inflammatory lung disease that causes airflow obstruction and limitation of the lungs that primarily affects the airway and lung parenchyma. Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) in COPD have been shown improvement of respiratory capacity, exercise capacity, self-efficacy, quality of life, and reduce COPD-related hospital admission. The purpose of postural drainage, manual technique, and cough control is to drain the excessive sputum, while breathing control with pursed-lip breathing and breathing exercise with deep breathing exercise and chest expansion exercise are to improve the respiratory capacity and control. The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility and outcome of PR in patients with Acute Exacerbation (AE) of COPD. This case report describes 4 patients with of AE of COPD who received PR. The inpatient PR program was 5 consecutive days twice daily of 3 times repetition cough control, 2 sets of 6 repetition pursed lip breathing, 2 sets of 6 repetition deep breathing exercise, postural drainage, and manual clapping. The postural drainage and the manual technique were given according to the chest x-ray result. The result of 5 days PR was: improvement of clean airway, SOB, incentive spirometer, chest expansion, and single breath count test in all subjects. Our findings demonstrate that early inpatient PR in COPD AE is safe, significantly effective and beneficial by improving many aspects of respiratory function