Development of an Integrated Virtual Group Training System for COPD Patients

Abstract

COPD patients experience a downward spiral of fear for breathlessness, inactivity and social isolation which leads to a bad physical condition. Motivation to keep patients compliant to their training scheme is a key factor in home-based exercise training. This paper presents the Integrated Training System for COPD patients; a home based virtual group exercise system to facilitate improvement of the exercise capacity safely at home using a virtual group environment. The four components of the system are the Home Trainer, the Virtual Exercise Environment, the Web Portal and the Controller. These components are implemented in a prototype. An in-training evaluation was performed to evaluate the subsystems used during a training exercise. All subsystems are working correctly during the evaluation. In this paper the focus for the Integrated Training System is on COPD patients, but the system might be used for other groups such as Chronic Heart Failure patients or elderly people in general.