OBJECTIVE: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Telehealth rehabilitation may offer new opportunities in patient therapy. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the effects of internet-mediated telerehabilitation and compare them with the outcomes of conventional pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD patients. METHODS: Electronic databases PubMed, Prospero, Scopus, and Cochrane were searched for randomized controlled trials from January 2005 to December 2021. Two investigators reviewed studies for relevance and extracted study population, methods, and results data. RESULTS: Ten studies were eligible for systematic review from the initial selection (n = 1492). There was considerable heterogeneity in telerehabilitation approaches. Functional exercise capacity and quality of life were assessed in all studies. None of the results were inferior to conventional care. High adherence and high levels of safety were observed. CONCLUSION: Telerehabilitation in COPD patients is a safe therapy approach that increases and maintains functional exercise capacity and quality of life, making it an equivalent option to conventional outpatient rehabilitation. However, there is currently a lack of a unified approach to the composition of therapy and the use of technology, which needs to be addressed in the future.

Clinical Exercise Physiology and Rehabilitation Research Laboratory Physiotherapy Department School of Health Sciences University of Thessaly Lamia Greece

Department of Physical Therapy University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Coral Gables FL USA

Department of Public Health Faculty of Medicine Masaryk University Brno Brno 62500 Czech Republic

Department of Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine 2nd Faculty of Medicine Charles University University Hospital Motol Prague Czech Republic

Department of Rehabilitation University Hospital Brno Brno 62500 Czech Republic

School of Nursing The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hong Kong People's Republic of China

Universidade Federal do Ceará Faculdade de Medicina Departamento de Fisioterapia Fortaleza Ceará Brazil

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