Fiftythree COPD patients were initially evaluated. A total of 13 patients were excluded for
exacerbation and/or worsening of their general state of health between the evaluation days (6),
inability to perform the tests proposed in the protocol (3), cognitive impairment (2), cardiac
arrhythmia (1) and severe desaturation (1). Since group assignment was defined at the second visit,
these exclusions did not affect the randomisation. The characteristics of the 40 patients that
completed the study are shown in Table 1. The 9 patients whose endurance time increased more than 25% during PLB (CB =
6.42±2.36 vs. PLB = 10.51±3.83 min; p0.05), IMPROVER had lower peak expiratory flow values (40.2±8.6 vs.
53.3±17.8% predicted; p