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Original Article

Evaluation of Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases

Journal of the Korean Academy of Rehabilitation Medicine 1995;19(3):27-0.
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Department of Pulmonary Medicine*, Presbyterian Medical Center, Chonju
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Chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) is a chronic disorder of airflow limitation that is often progressive. It not only limits patient's activities of daily living because of coughing, sputum and dyspnea, but also causes an economic lose due to the unemployment. The prevalence can be reduced by early detection and prevention through smoking cessation. Until today, the proper rehabilitation treatment for them has not been done well. To get an effective and comprehensive pulmonary rehabilitation program, we were interviewed patients with COPD, such 34 issues as physical, psychological, social, and vocational problems. The number of interviewed patients were 83; 60 men and 23 women. The average age and morbidity period were 65.7 years old and 12 years respectively. Out of the patients, 77.1% has experience of smoking. The average numbers of admission and cost were 2.79 times and ₩55,000 per month. Class IV (38.6%) was turned out to be the major case in COPD disability scale, and so was scale III (39.8%) in Scale of life satisfaction. The frequency of communication with family members was as follows; frequently (61.4%), by request (25.3%), and indifference (13.3%). Many patients requested that the government provide aids for medical treatment for them(44.6%). Therefore, our results suggest that further controlled of pulmonary rehabilitation programs which are medical management, cessation smoking, chest physical therapy, medical insurance and vocational rehabilitation are needed for patients with COPD.

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