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Abstract
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. It is a heterogeneous disorder resulting from dysfunction of the small and large airways and destruction of the lung parenchyma and vasculature in highly variable combinations.
Patients with COPD are frequently unable to carry out many activities of daily living because of poor exercise performance. Improving physical performance is therefore an important therapeutic goal. Pulmonary rehabilitation is effective in improving exercise performance and health status in COPD.
Although exercise training improves exercise tolerance in patients with COPD, some patients with severe disease may not be able to tolerate exercise training due to incapacitating breathlessness. Transcutaneous electrical muscle stimulation (TCEMS) has been shown to improve exercise tolerance and functional capacity in patients with moderate to severe COPD.
The present study was designed to assess the functional impairment and exercise tolerance in patients with moderate to severe COPD before and after specific rehabilitation program for evaluating the effectiveness of passive training of lower limb muscle groups by means of TCEMS.
Our study included 20 male patients with moderate to severe COPD according to Gold Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) 2006.