Smartphone App–Guided Pulmonary Rehabilitation in Chronic Respiratory Diseases: Randomized Controlled Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Pulmonary rehabilitation improves exercise capacity, dyspnea, quality of life, and survival in patients with chronic respiratory disease. However, center-based pulmonary rehabilitation programs remain unavailable in many health care facilities due to several barriers. To address this, we developed a smartphone app that enabled individuals to perform pulmonary rehabilitation at home. Objective: We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of smartphone app-guided pulmonary rehabilitation in improving exercise capacity in individuals with chronic respiratory diseases. Methods: This was a multicenter prospective, single-blind, randomized controlled trial conducted in 2022. A total of 100 participants with chronic respiratory disease, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and lung cancer, were recruited, with equal distribution (50:50) between the intervention group and the control group. The intervention group followed a 12-week app-guided rehabilitation program, while the control group received standard outpatient treatment. The primary outcome was the 6-minute walk test distance (6MWD) after the 12-week rehabilitation period. Secondary outcomes included quality of life questionnaires and health care usage. Results: Among the 100 participants included, 88 completed the follow-up visit (41 in the intervention group and 47 in the control group). Their median age was 68.0 years, and 72 (81.8%) were men. Most participants (n=70, 79.5%) had a smoking history, with a median of 40.0 pack-years. Their forced expiratory volume in 1 second was a median of 63.0% (IQR 50.5-71.5). Most participants (n=85, 96.6%) had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. After the 12-week rehabilitation program, 6MWD was not different between the intervention and control group (median 490.0, IQR 468.8-556.3 vs 485.0, IQR 440.0-527.3 m). Assuming a clinically minimal effective change of 25 meters in 6MWD, only 7 out of 41 participants among the intervention group achieved the minimal clinically important differences after the rehabilitation program. Quality of life questionnaire scores, including the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, did not differ between groups. In addition, none of the participants experienced hospitalization or emergency room visits during the study period. Regarding the service satisfaction questionnaire, more than 3-quarters of the intervention group (34/41) rated their scores as ≥17/20. Conclusions: In this study, smartphone app-guided pulmonary rehabilitation failed to improve exercise capacity and quality of life in patients with chronic respiratory diseases. However, the results indicated that older adults with chronic respiratory conditions can safely use smartphone app-guided pulmonary rehabilitation. Thus, smartphone app-guided pulmonary rehabilitation may be a feasible option for older adults with chronic respiratory disease.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".