Home‐based telerehabilitation via real‐time videoconferencing improves endurance exercise capacity in patients with COPD: The randomized controlled TeleR Study

ABSTRACT Background and objective Telerehabilitation has the potential to increase access to pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) for patients with COPD who have difficulty accessing centre‐based PR due to poor mobility, lack of transport and cost of travel. We aimed to determine the effect of supervised, home‐based, real‐time videoconferencing telerehabilitation on exercise capacity, self‐efficacy, health‐related quality of life (HRQoL) and physical activity in patients with COPD compared with usual care without exercise training. Methods Patients with COPD were randomized to either a supervised home‐based telerehabilitation group (TG) that received exercise training three times a week for 8 weeks or a control group (CG) that received usual care without exercise training. Outcomes were measured at baseline and following the intervention. Results Thirty‐six out of 37 participants (mean ± SD age = 74 ± 8 years, forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1 ) = 64 ± 21% predicted) completed the study. Compared with the CG, the TG showed a statistically significant increase in endurance shuttle walk test time (mean difference = 340 s (95% CI: 153–526, P