Telemonitoring and telerehabilitation can be useful tools in improving exercise ability with an impact on healthcare resource use.

In this retrospective descriptive study, we present a cohort of 7 severe COPD patients (5 awaiting lung transplant) that integrated our telemonitoring program. Data regarding lung function, number of daily steps, 6-minute walk test (6MWT) results, and number of emergency department (ED) visits or hospital admissions were collected.

A total of 5 males and 2 females, with a median age of 64.43±8.26 years, and a median program follow-up of 13.86±9.67 months were included. The mean % predicted FEV1 was 22.43±12.04%. This cohort presented a total of 6 ED visits and 3 hospital admissions in the year preceding each patient?s integration, which decreased to just 1 hospital admission after initiating the program. Regarding the number of steps, we considered patients with at least 6 (n=5) and 12 (n=4) months of records. In the first 3 months of telemonitoring the patients walked an average of 1290.79 steps/day increasing to 1362.31 in the following 3 months (+71.51 steps/day). The average number of steps in the subgroup of patients with at least one year of data (n=4) increased from 1549.73 to 2612.84 steps/day (+1063.11 steps/day). A positive impact was also seen in the 6MWT with an average distance of 195.50±49.29m increasing to 219.33±58.54m after the program, and the minimum oxygen saturation from 86.50±5.36% to 89.17±2.40%.

These results suggest the feasibility of a telemonitoring and telerehabilitation program in a cohort of severe COPD patients, including lung transplant candidates, with potential impact on healthcare use and exercise ability.