Patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) had a lower risk of hospital readmission within 30 days if they participated in moderate to vigorous exercise.
Researchers looked at the health records of 6,042 Kaiser Permanente patients who were over the age of 40 and had been hospitalized for COPD complications, a news release reported. These patients had self-reported their levels of physical activity.
The patients were group into three different classifications: "inactive, insufficiently active and active," the news release reported.
The research team found that COPD patients who exercised at least 150 minutes a week had a 34 percent lower risk of readmission within 30 days than those who were inactive. Those who participated in less than 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity had a 33 percent lower chance of readmission within the time period than those who did not participate in any form of exercise.
"The results of this study are groundbreaking because measures of physical activity were derived from routine clinical care, instead of lengthy physical activity surveys or activity devices in smaller research samples," study lead author, Huong Nguyen, PhD, RN, of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation, said in the news release. "Previous research has only analyzed the relationship between physical inactivity and increased mortality rate and hospitalizations, but not 30-day readmissions in patients with COPD."
The participants in the study were relatively ethnically diverse: "68 percent white, 15 percent black, 12 percent Hispanic, and [four] percent Asian/Pacific Islander," the news release reported.
"Many health care systems are currently focused on providing interventions at or soon after hospital discharge to reduce readmissions," Nguyen said. "This study is novel in that we were able to capture information about patients' usual physical activity well before the initial hospitalization and it provides evidence that supports the promotion of physical activity across the COPD care continuum. Our findings suggest that regular physical activity could buffer the stresses of hospitalization. Future studies will focus on determining whether we can reduce hospitalizations by improving physical activity in patients with COPD."
COPD can cause symptoms such as shortness of breath, productive cough, and fatigue, the American Thoracic Society reported.
