Pulmonary Rehabilitation Programs

Evaluation of the effectiveness of pulmonary rehabilitation programs can be based on:

• Patient outcomes(i.e. what was the effect of the program on patient outcomes such as their exercise capacity, symptoms and quality of life?).
• Patient feedback(i.e. what did the patient think of the program?).

Evaluating the effectiveness of a pulmonary rehabilitation program depends on the assessment of patients before and after the program. Ideally, long-term re-assessments ( or repeat) (e.g. 12 months after program completion) would also be conducted to help determine the long-term effectiveness of the pulmonary rehabilitation program and to provide long-term follow-up data.  The availability of resources may limit centres from conducting long-term re-assessments.