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Effects of resistance training on exercise capacity in elderly patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a meta-analysis and systematic review

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Abstract

Objective

The objective of this study was to summarize and determine the effectiveness of resistance training on exercise capacity in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Methods

We searched PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and two Chinese databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang Data) to identify articles written in English or Chinese and published from January 2000 to January 2019. Randomized controlled trials were included if they evaluated the effects of resistance training on exercise capacity in COPD patients. We assessed the quality of the trials using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database Scale. Data from these studies were pooled to calculate weighted mean difference (WMD) or standardized mean difference (SMD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Results

Eleven studies with a total of 405 participants met the inclusion criteria. Compared with the non-exercise control group, resistance training significantly improved 6-min walking distance (WMD, 54.52; 95% CI 25.47–83.56; I2 = 43%; P = 0.14), transfer numbers for the 6-min pegboard and ring test (WMD, 25.17; 95% CI 10.17–40.16; I2 = 0%; P = 0.55), and tolerance time for the unsupported upper-limb exercise test (SMD, 0.41; 95% CI 0.03–0.79; I2 = 0%; P = 0.83). There were no significant differences in constant work rate endurance test results or in peak oxygen uptake between the two groups.

Conclusions

Resistance training was an effective approach to improve functional exercise capacity, endurance exercise capacity, and peak exercise capacity in COPD patients.

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Funding

This systematic review was funded by national fitness project of General Administration of Sport of China (No. 2017B021), the “Qi Kang” young innovative talents project of School of Rehabilitation Medicine in Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the directed research grants from Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (No. 18DZ1200600), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81902307).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sports Medicine, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, 200438, China

    Ning Li, Peijun Li, Yufan Lu, Zhengrong Wang, Jian Li & Weibing Wu

  2. School of Rehabilitation Science, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, 201203, China

    Xiaodan Liu

  3. Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, Shanghai Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, 201203, China

    Xiaodan Liu

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  1. Ning Li
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  2. Peijun Li
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  4. Zhengrong Wang
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  5. Jian Li
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Contributions

NL, PL: conception of the study and development of protocol. NL, YL, ZW participated in all stages of the study design, systematic literature view, statistical analyses and helped to draft the manuscript. JL, XL, WW contributed to the interpretation of data and revision of the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xiaodan Liu or Weibing Wu.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This review does not contain any experiments involving human participants or animals performed by any authors.

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For this review, informed consent forms were not required.

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Li, N., Li, P., Lu, Y. et al. Effects of resistance training on exercise capacity in elderly patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a meta-analysis and systematic review. Aging Clin Exp Res 32, 1911–1922 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-019-01339-8

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