Comparison of the effect of outdoor eccentric versus indoor concentric exercise training on physical capacity and qualityof-life in patients with advanced COPD (DOWNHILL-study)
| abstract |
Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often
suffer from cardio-pulmonary limitations, which makes them avoid
exercise training. However, exercise training is explicitly
recommended for COPD patients as physical activity (PA) is known to
positively modulate disease progression and increase the quality of
life. Therefore, cleverly devised training modalities that account
for cardio-pulmonary limitations are warranted to enable efficient
training and increase the PA of patients with COPD. Eccentric
exercise training (EET) is a training modality that puts relatively
high strain on the muscles while sparing cardio-pulmonary output
requirements. Thus, EET allows that patients with moderate-to-severe COPD can perform exercise training and strengthen their muscles without experiencing exercise-limiting dyspnea. It is therefore reasonable to assume that EET may have high compliance in COPD and that the training effects of EET are at least non-inferior to those of classical concentric exercise training (CET). In this study, we address this question in a two-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT) of EET vs. CET training interventions. The study is embedded into the existing outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation program (“ambulante pulmonale Rehabilitation”) of the Lung Center, Cantonal Hospital St.Gallen. |
| type of project | fundamental research |
| status | ongoing - recruiting phase |
| start of project | 2021 |
| end of project | 2023 |
| project manager | Maximilian Bösch |