pulmonary rehab

Hi guys. I hope prac is going well for all. I’m on my cardio placement and this morning observed a pulmonary rehabilitation class. All eight of the patients in the class are COPD patients and the class consists of a 20 minute walk and then upper limb and lower limb exercises. I know PCR is around the corner so I thought I would give you a brush up on how to calculate the goal distance for a patient to walk in 20 minutes.

At the start of a patient’s program, they are required to do a 6-minute walk test (walk as far as possible in 6 minutes). So if a patient walked 200m in 6 minutes (minimum distance required to be eligible to enroll in pulmonary rehab), you can multiply the distance by 10, to get their calculated 60 minute distance (= 2000m). Then divide that by 3 to get the 20 minute distance (= 666.67m). Then because you don’t need them to do a maximum effort, you get their 80% sub max effort (= 533.33m).

So if a patient walks 200m in the 6-minute walk test, their goal 20 minute walking distance is 533.33m. Hope that was of some use.