PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Ong, Kian-Chung
AU  - Chong, Wai-Fung
AU  - Soh, Cindy
AU  - Earnest, Arul
TI  - Comparison of Different Exercise Tests in Assessing Outcomes of Pulmonary Rehabilitation
DP  - 2004 Dec 01
TA  - Respiratory Care
PG  - 1498--1503
VI  - 49
IP  - 12
4099  - http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/49/12/1498.short
4100  - http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/49/12/1498.full
AB  - INTRODUCTION: Common modalities of clinical exercise testing for outcome measurement after pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) include walk tests, progressive cycle ergometry, and cycle endurance testing. We hypothesized that patients&#039; responses to PR, as measured by those 3 tests, are differentially correlated, and we designed a study to investigate the tests&#039; capacity to detect changes after PR. METHODS: We prospectively tested 37 male patients with stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who completed a comprehensive 6-week PR program that included supervised exercise training that emphasized steady-state lower-limb aerobic exercise. Before and after the PR program the patients underwent 6-minute walk test, progressive cycle ergometry, and cycle endurance testing (at 80% of the peak work rate achieved during progressive cycle ergometry). The exercise performance indices of interest were the peak oxygen uptake (VO2max) and maximum work-rate (Wmax) during progressive cycle ergometry, the cycling endurance time, and the 6-minute walk distance (6MWD). RESULTS: After PR there were statistically significant improvements in 6MWD (16%, p &amp;lt; 0.001), VO2max (53%, p = 0.004), Wmax (30%, p = 0.001), and cycling endurance time (144%, p &amp;lt; 0.001). The changes in VO2max and Wmax were significantly correlated (r = 0.362, p = 0.027), as were the changes in endurance time and Wmax (r = 0.406, p = 0.013). There was no significant correlation between changes in any other exercise index. CONCLUSIONS: Among the frequently used exercise tests in PR, the most responsive index is the endurance time. The correlation between the post-PR changes in the various exercise indices is poor.