On the assessment of medical rehabilitation effectiveness in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the resort setting

Abstract

To perform a comparative analysis of methods for assessing the medical rehabilitation outcomes in COPD patients in the resort setting. The study involved 71 patients with stage I-II COPD, with bronchitis (66.2%) and mixed (COPD + asthma, 33.8%) phenotypes in the clinical remission phase. The mean age of the patients was 57.0±9.8 years, and the mean duration of disease was 7.8±5.1 years. Within 14 days, all patients received an identical set of rehabilitation measures with natural and preformed physical therapeutic resort factors. Before and after the medical rehabilitation course, clinical, laboratory, functional tests and questionnaires were performed on each patient. The effectiveness of course-based complex rehabilitation was assessed using one of three methods: CAT (COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] Assessment Test), the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), the COPD control and control stability criteria system. Comparison of the three methods of assessment of COPD patients' rehabilitation outcomes in resort settings showed that the CAT score is the easiest to use, the least time-consuming, highly valid, and informative. According to the CAT score, the resort medical rehabilitation effectiveness was 96.4%, with «improvement» and «significant improvement» recorded in 82.1% of cases. The use of ICF provides reliable information about the rehabilitation complex effect on the main pathogenetic links of the disease, which allows proper adjusting of rehabilitation procedures to improve effectiveness in the resort setting. Specified grades of ICF domains make it possible to translate qualitative and quantitative attributes inherent to a particular subject into points. The points trend during the medical rehabilitation indicates its effectiveness in terms of recovery of specific functions impaired by the disease. At the same time, the ICF does not allow to rank the medical rehabilitation outcomes in the resort setting in terms of the currently accepted concepts of «significant improvement,» «improvement,» «slight improvement,» «no change,» «deterioration,» which limits its application in resorts. We believe that assessment of rehabilitation outcomes based on COPD control and control stability is not applicable to resort setting due to possible discrepancy between the impression formed in a short time (14 days) about these characteristics of the pathological process and the actual status, as well as due to lack of knowledge about the effect of achieved/not achieved disease control on the choice of rehabilitation technology. A simple and highly informative CAT score can be recommended to assess the effectiveness of resort medical rehabilitation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.