Exercise improves psychological well-being in patients with lung disease

Regular exercise reduces anxiety and depression and improves physical endurance in people with serious lung disease, a new study finds.

At the beginning of the 10-week study, researchers randomly assigned 79 adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)?the fourth leading cause of death in the United States?to one of three groups. One group participated in regular exercise?three to five days a week for 10 weeks?an educational class about COPD, and a stress management class. Another group attended the educational and stress-management classes only. And the third group received no treatment during the study.

At the end of the study, people in the exercise group scored lower on measures of anxiety and depression than they did before the intervention. They also had improved physical endurance even though their lung capacity was no better. People in the other two groups showed no such improvements.

These results are particularly significant because COPD patients often limit their physical activity, and physicians typically reinforce that tendency, says one of the study authors, psychologist Charles Emery, PhD, of Ohio State University.

'It?s becoming clear that physical inactivity doesn?t do these patients any good and probably hurts them,' he says. The study appears in Health Psychology (Vol. 17, No. 3, p. 232?240).

?B. Azar