Understanding the impact of physical activity in COPD outcomes: moving forward

From observational studies, it is now clear that physical inactivity is linked with poor outcome in COPD http://ow.ly/AJ7mFArguably, three outcome categories are of greatest importance to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, their families and their caregivers: health-related quality of life (including symptom burden); hospitalisations and other forms of healthcare utilisation; and, of course, mortality.Lower levels of baseline physical activity are not only prevalent in patients with COPD [1, 2], they are associated a negative impact in each of these three outcome categories [3][4][5].