MONTREAL – A structured regimen of regular yoga exercises was as effective as a standard pulmonary rehabilitation program in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for improving lung function, exercise tolerance, dyspnea severity, and quality of life in a single-center, randomized comparison of the two strategies with 60 patients.

In addition, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients had a higher level of acceptance of yoga and were more comfortable doing it, compared with standard pulmonary rehabilitation, and it is a cost-effective approach given the minimal equipment required, Dr. Randeep Guleria said at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.

“Patients with difficulty walking, osteoarthritis, knee problems, or unable to do exercises like cycling or treadmill found yoga to be much more acceptable,” said Dr. Guleria in an interview. Acceptance of yoga was also higher than standard rehabilitation among patients with more severe COPD, said Dr. Guleria, professor and head of the department of pulmonary medicine and sleep disorders at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.

“I think that yoga could be a very valuable adjunct” to pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD patients, commented Dr. Roger S. Goldstein, director of the divisional program in respiratory rehabilitation at the University of Toronto. Dr. Goldstein speculated that even better than comparing yoga against conventional pulmonary rehabilitation would be a study that compared a combined yoga plus rehabilitation program against standard rehabilitation alone. Yoga is “a tremendous opportunity,” he said.

The 12-week study enrolled 60 patients who averaged 56 years old who had been diagnosed with COPD for an average of 8 years. Just under a third of the patients had moderate COPD, 42% had severe COPD, and 28% had very severe COPD.

Dr. Guleria and his associates randomized 30 patients into a yoga program that included 4 weeks of biweekly 1-hour sessions that instructed patients in a series of specially designed yoga exercises. That was followed by 8 weeks during which patients were mostly left to perform their learned exercises on their own, but with a supervised session once every 2 weeks. The other 30 patients participated in a standard pulmonary rehabilitation program for 12 weeks.

The researchers measured several parameters at baseline and after 12 weeks, including two measures of dyspnea severity, 6-minute walk distance, a quality of life assessment, and two serum markers of inflammation, C-reactive protein and interleukin 6.

Both interventions resulted in modest but statistically significant improvements, such as increases in 6-minute walk distance and a reduced modified Borg scale assessment. The Borg scale score fell from an average of 1.5 at baseline to 1.0 after 12 weeks in the yoga patients, and from an average 3.0 at baseline to 0.5 after 12 weeks in the rehabilitation patients.

A score that measured total quality of life improved by an average of 32% in the yoga patients and by an average of 21% in the rehabilitation patients, changes that approached statistical significance in both subgroups.

Comparing the assessment measures after 12 weeks in both arms of the study showed no statistically significant between-group differences, Dr. Guleria reported.

The researchers commissioned a specially designed yoga program from a professional yoga instructor who had been briefed about COPD. The yoga exercises included physical postures, breathing technique, and meditation and relaxation. The pulmonary rehabilitation program included patient education, upper and lower limb exercises, and breathing exercises.

Dr. Guleria said he believed the opportunity exists to further modify the yoga program to better optimize its potential to benefit COPD patients.

Dr. Guleria had no relevant disclosures. Dr. Goldstein had no relevant disclosures.

The video associated with this article is no longer available on this site. Please view all of our videos on the MDedge YouTube channel.

[email protected]

On Twitter@mitchelzoler