Combined exercise-based rehabilitation for adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and/or chronic heart failure

The presence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and chronic heart failure (CHF) often mean individuals experience exertional dyspnoea and fatigue. Both COPD and CHF are important long-term conditions with significant symptom burden. Due to the shared risk-factors, these conditions frequently co-exist. Exercise is recommended in the management of both these chronic conditions, specifically through Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR) and Cardiac Rehabilitation (CR),respectively. There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating the benefits of these treatments, such as improved exercise capacity and health-related quality of life. Despite both treatments comprising of structured exercise training and educational material, the aims and outcome measures typically reported vary, with CR largely assessing cardiovascular risk and PR largely assessing exercise capacity and health-related quality of life.There is increasing interest to combine exercise rehabilitation for adults with COPD, CHF or co-existing COPD and CHF into one programme with a combination of outcomes assessed. To the best of our knowledge, the feasibility of collecting additional outcome measures within a combined exercise rehabilitation programme for adults with COPD, CHF or both COPD and CHF is unknown. [Continues.]