The effect of exercise-based rehabilitation on objective physical activity levels in patients with persistent dyspnoea following pulmonary embolism

Background: Rehabilitation improves exercise capacity following pulmonary embolism (PE), but it is unclear whether this improvement is transferred into increased physical activity. Objectives. To explore the effect of exercise-based rehabilitation on objective measures of physical activity in patients with persistent dyspnoea following PE compared to standard care. Methods: This pre-planned substudy compared an eight-week exercise-based rehabilitation program to usual care. Number of steps per day and time spent in sedentary, low, moderate and vigorous physical activity (in number of metabolic equivalent of tasks) were measured for seven consecutive days at baseline prior to intervention start and at post-intervention using accelerometery. Data were analysed with a mixed-effect generalised linear model. Results: Complete data was provided by 48 patients at both timepoints (mean age 58 years, 54 % men) with 54 % randomised to rehabilitation. There were no significant differences between groups at baseline. The majority of time (717 min per day) was spent in sedentary activity and mean number of steps per day was 6701. At post-intervention, there were no significant differences between groups in any of the objectively measured physical activity parameters (p > 0.05). Conclusion: In this cohort, exercise-based rehabilitation following PE did not change daily physical activity levels compared to usual care control group.