Challenges in pulmonary rehabilitation: COVID-19 and beyond

Pulmonary rehabilitation is a comprehensive multidisciplinary intervention requiring a team involving an expert chest physician, an exercise training specialist, a nutritional expert, a psychologist, a social worker, and an occupational therapist aimed at improving respiratory functional capacity in patient's whit chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We evaluated the effectiveness of pulmonary rehabilitation through a large number of trials and systematic review and meta-analysis in common condition, while the impact on pulmonary rehabilitation during COVID-19 pandemic was estimated by the results from the abundant literature available thus far. Thirty-four studies were selected to assess the global results concerning pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD patients before the pandemic, wile 40 studies were selected from the literature concerning pulmonary on rehabilitation during the COVID-19 pandemic. A large number of systematic review and meta-analysis reported data on the efficacy of rehabilitation in COPD patients, based on the improvement in inspiratory muscle strength, exercise capacity, dyspnea, and quality of life. The response to rehabilitation in patients with COVID-19 is also satisfactory. Pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD patients is showing an evolving need for healthcare professionals to deal with patients with COVID-19 to design an individually tailored pulmonary rehabilitation program to recover the chronic symptoms and reduce complications.