Study objectives: To compare the effectiveness of two forms of exercise training in pulmonary rehabilitation for COPD patients. Design: A prospective, randomized Eight-week study. Setting: A hospital-based outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation program. Patients: Thirty patients (15 patients in each group) with COPD who were referred for pulmonary rehabilitation. Interventions: We compared the short-term effectiveness of a high-intensity shuttle-walking-endurance program with a low-intensity, multicomponent calisthenics program for the rehabilitation of patients with COPD. The high-intensity group trained using the shuttle walking. The low-intensity group performed classroom exercises for approximately 30 minutes per session. For both groups, twice-weekly sessions were held for eight weeks. The primary outcome measure was Quality of Life, measured using the Clinical COPD questionnaire and rate of perceived exertion using Borg Scale. Measurements and results: Both groups showed significant post rehabilitation improvement in exertional and overall dyspnea, functional performance, and health status. Patients in the low-intensity group showed greater increase in endurance and greater reduction in exertional dyspnea, whereas those in the high-intensity group showed moderate increase in endurance and exertional dyspnea. Conclusions: It has been concluded that both the high-intensity training and low intensity training showed improvement in quality of life, but low-intensity training showed marked improvement in terms of exertional dyspnea and quality of life as this training is easy to perform and less expensive.

 Key words: COPD; Shuttle walking pulmonary rehabilitation.