ReviewFrontiers in rehabilitation sciences2026
Low-cost pulmonary rehabilitation for chronic respiratory diseases: a narrative review.
Review in Frontiers in rehabilitation sciences, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is a cornerstone in the management of chronic respiratory diseases (CRD), but access remains severely limited in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) because of cost, infrastructure, and workforce barriers. This mini narrative review synthesized evidence on the effectiveness, feasibility, and implementation of low-cost PR strategies designed with minimal equipment and simplified delivery models. Low-cost PR was considered not only as exercise training using minimal or improvised equipment, but as a context-adapted rehabilitation model that preserves essential PR components while adapting to local health-system, workforce, cultural, and socioeconomic constraints. Searches were conducted in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and SciELO (2014-2024); twenty publications were included, comprising randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, systematic reviews, clinical guidelines, and implementation research. Across studies, low-cost PR consistently improved exercise capacity, symptoms, and health-related quality of life, measured by 6MWT, ISWT, SGRQ, and CAT. Home-based and community programs demonstrated feasibility and safety, often comparable to conventional PR; supervision and structured education enhanced adherence, while properly instructed unsupervised programs also showed non-inferior outcomes. Tai Chi and Nordic walking emerged as culturally adaptable, low-cost alternatives. However, evidence remains heterogeneous and predominantly COPD-focused, with limited data for other CRD and few studies in primary healthcare, restricting generalizability to the broader CRD burden in LMICs. Effective scale-up requires attention to workforce availability, primary healthcare integration, contextual barriers to home-based rehabilitation, digital accessibility, education, equity, and long-term sustainability. Further high-quality trials and implementation studies are needed to consolidate evidence and inform policies that integrate context-adapted, affordable PR into healthcare systems.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.