[Pulmonary rehabilitation - a modern and patient-centred treatment approach in COPD]

Physical exercise is highly effective to improve exercise capacity and quality of life of patients with COPD and to reduce the risk for hospital admissions in patients with exacerbations.The combination of physical exercise,patient education and pharmacotherapy,as typically performed during pulmonary rehabilitation, has become the modern disease management for COPD patients. Unfortunately, there is still a lack of evidence on effective treatments to increase levels of physical activity. But there are currently major research efforts to evaluate drug and non-drug treatments for increasing levels of physical activity. This raises hopes that effective treatments could,through an increase in physical activity,reduce the risk for hospital admissions and early death in COPD patients.