Rehabilitation in Patients Hospitalised with An Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Patients allocated to the treatment group will receive two individual training sessions daily during the five weekdays, in which the morning session will be supervised, and the afternoon session will be unsupervised. The training sessions will comprise of walking and resistance exercises and will be carried out by a trained physiotherapist. The training will commence within 48 hours of admission until the patients are allowed to be discharged from the hospital. We expect each session (supervised or unsupervised) to take no longer than 30 minutes (inclusive of rests). Resistance training includes sit to stand, half squats and step exercises. Initial prescription will be determined by one set of individualised number of repetition based on the baseline Sit-To-Stand-Test score. The exercise prescription will be increased by one set on every second day of training. Walking training will be prescribed based on the baseline two-minute walk distance (2MWD) and progressed on every second day of training by increasing the distance walked during each session by 20%.