Inspiratory Muscle Training and COPD

Subjects with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) frequently develop considerable deterioration in exercise capacity in association with weakness and deconditioning of the respiratory muscles, which can be corrected with specific therapies. While pulmonary rehabilitation is a central component in the rather complex manangement of COPD, there is currently a lack of centers able to provide appropriate rehabilitation services in the Czech Republic. The main objective of this study will be to fully evaluate the utility of the Test of Incremental Respiratory Endurance (TIRE) as an at-home inspiratory muscle training method in subjects with COPD, while comparing the effectiveness of this novel training approach to the outcomes of more traditional ispiratory muscle training protocols. This prospective, randomized controlled trial will include 2 treatment groups and 1 sham intervention group in a 1:1:1 ratio. All participants will undergo a certain type of IMT regardless of group assignment, which will be perfomed via two different devices. The trial will comprise of an 8-week at-home training period with remote supervision followed by 4 months of unsupervised, independent inspiratory muscle training. Study outcomes will include measures of inspiratory muscle strength and endurance, pulmonary function, COPD-specific symptomatology, functional exercise capacity, surrogate markers of mortality risk, mental health status and health-related quality of life of participants. While investigators acknowledge the value of standard inspiratory muscle training protocols which use Threshold devices, investigators believe that the TIRE training has the potential to provide additional clinical benefits since it is able to modulate all aspects of muscular performance, including strength, endurance and work capacity. Investigators hypothesize that, as a home-based stand-alone rehabilitative therapy, TIRE will be superior to standard IMT in improving COPD-related measures.