Baduanjin exercise for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective: To objectively evaluate the effectiveness of Baduanjin exercise on cardiopulmonary function and quality of life in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients. Data sources: Articles published in PubMed, EMBASE, China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, the Cochrane Library, Wanfang Database, and China Biological Medicine Database from inception to March 2020. Review Method: Articles on randomized controlled trials about Baduanjin exercise for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were identified. Cochrane handbook was applied to assess the quality of included trials. Stata (version 14.0) and Review Manager (version 5.3) were employed for data analysis. Mean difference with 95% confidence intervals were calculated for pulmonary function, 6-minute walking distance, and the quality of life. Results: Thirty-one randomized controlled trials including 3045 patients were included. The result of meta-analysis indicated that comparing with any other type of treatment alone, Baduanjin exercise combined other type of treatment revealed well efficacy in improving exercise capability on 6-minute walking distance (mean difference = 43.83, 95% confidence interval (29.47, 58.20), P < 0.00001), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (mean difference = 0.23, 95% confidence interval (0.15, 0.31), P < 0.00001), forced volume vital capacity (mean difference = 0.19, 95% confidence interval (0.08, 0.30), P = 0.0007), the ratio of forced expiratory volume in the first second to forced vital capacity (mean difference = 3.85, 95% confidence interval (2.19, 5.51), P < 0.00001), and the quality of life in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients regarding the St. George respiratory questionnaire (mean difference = –7.71, 95% confidence interval (–10.54, –4.89), P < 0.00001) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease assessment test (mean difference = –2.56, 95% confidence interval (–4.13, –1.00), P = 0.001). Conclusions: Baduanjin exercise could improve exercise capacity, pulmonary function, and quality of life for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Scientific Evidence of Traditional Chinese Exercise (Qigong) for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: An Overview of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses

“…al [ 34 ]. All included SRs/MAs were published by Chinese scholars, five [ 21 , 22 , 27 , 28 , 31 ] of which were written in English and eight [ 23 – 26 , 29 , 30 , 32 , 33 ] in Chinese. The number of RCTs included per SR/MA ranged from 8 to 30, and the participants in these RCTs ranged from 534 to 3,045.…”

“…The methodological quality of all SRs/MAs was very low due to multiple deficiencies in critical and noncritical items. The deficiencies in the inclusion of SRs/MAs assessed by AMSTAR-2 were as follows: Item 2 (only 2 [ 27 , 28 ] SRs/MAs have registered study protocols), Item 7 (none of the SR/MA provided a list of excluded articles), Item 10 (none of the SR/MAs provided a list of funding for RCTs), and Item 15 [ 21 – 23 , 25 , 26 , 28 ] (only 6 SRs/MAs completed the publication bias assessment).…”

“…Only 2 [ 27 , 28 ] (2/13, 15.38%) SRs/MAs provided information on the registration of study protocols, which made the quality assessment of Item 24 (registration and protocol) reporting unsatisfactory. In addition to this, only 5 [ 21 , 22 , 27 , 28 , 31 ] (5/13, 38.46%) SRs/MAs reported conflicts of interest, which rendered Item 26 (competing interests) reporting insufficient.…”

“…Twelve SRs/MAs [ 21 , 22 , 24 – 33 ] reported the effect of Qigong on 6-WMD, and the results indicated that Qigong could significantly improve 6-WMD in COPD patients.…”

“…Twelve SRs/MAs [ 21 – 31 , 33 ] reported that Qigong could significantly improve FEV1 in COPD patients. Eleven SRs/MAs [ 22 – 31 , 33 ] reported the effect of Qigong on FEV1%, of which 10 SRs/MAs [ 22 – 31 ] showed that Qigong could significantly improve FEV1% in COPD patients.…”