The pulmonary rehabilitation regimen: a treatment for frailty and ‘inflammaging’?

Abstract

Pulmonary rehabilitation is an exercise-based intervention that improves walking endurance, strength, functional independence, wellbeing and the risk of re-admission to hospital. It was developed for patients recovering from acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and sometimes other long-term inflammatory lung diseases. Many other conditions have a chronic inflammatory component, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, osteoarthritis and old age. Such background inflammation is linked to a range of adverse outcomes, including all-cause mortality, sarcopenia and other markers of frailty. Exercise, including pulmonary rehabilitation, has an anti-inflammatory effect on innate immune chemistry, and improves outcomes in a variety of conditions, although for most diagnostic groups there is no consistent structured programme similar to pulmonary rehabilitation. The authors contend that the pulmonary rehabilitation model could be used generically to treat other chronic and post-acute inflammatory states and thereby reduce the risk of frailty and other adverse outcomes.