Adherence to Exercise among COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) Patient- Barriers and Facilitators

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a common inflammatory lung disease characterized by persistent respiratory symptoms and airflow limitation. There is compelling evidence that regular exercise can lower the chance of developing several chronic diseases. Although it helps in reducing COPD symptoms and improve quality of life, which is highly beneficial for COPD patients, there are still several reasons for barriers to adherence to exercise in COPD patients which further affects their health. Most COPD patients are typically compelled to minimize exercise and adopt sedentary lifestyles due to decrease activity related dyspnea and exercise tolerance. Relevant literature was obtained from platforms such as Google Scholar and PubMed. For thorough retrieval, the Boolean logic operators “AND, OR NOT” were applied. All pertinent keywords, mesh terms, and other index terms were searched for in relation to “barriers,” “facilitators,” “chronic obstructive pulmonary disease” and “exercise” which were then utilized to build the search strategy. This review found that exercise improved dyspnea, quality of life, lessened depression, enhanced cognitive and neurobehavioral function in COPD patients, and shortened hospital stays and COPD exacerbations. Many factors act as barriers of adherence to exercise among COPD patients, such as self, environment, health and psychosocial. While numerous factors such as positive feedback, support from family, self-initiation, etc. act as a facilitator of adherence to exercise among COPD patients. Keywords: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, barriers, facilitators, benefits of exercise.