Baduanjin exercise for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective: To objectively evaluate the effectiveness of Baduanjin exercise on cardiopulmonary function and quality of life in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients. Data sources: Articles published in PubMed, EMBASE, China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, the Cochrane Library, Wanfang Database, and China Biological Medicine Database from inception to March 2020. Review Method: Articles on randomized controlled trials about Baduanjin exercise for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were identified. Cochrane handbook was applied to assess the quality of included trials. Stata (version 14.0) and Review Manager (version 5.3) were employed for data analysis. Mean difference with 95% confidence intervals were calculated for pulmonary function, 6-minute walking distance, and the quality of life. Results: Thirty-one randomized controlled trials including 3045 patients were included. The result of meta-analysis indicated that comparing with any other type of treatment alone, Baduanjin exercise combined other type of treatment revealed well efficacy in improving exercise capability on 6-minute walking distance (mean difference = 43.83, 95% confidence interval (29.47, 58.20), P