Respiratory care
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Impact of Real-Time Assessment of Pulse Oximetry on the 6-Min Walk Distance in Patients With Chronic Respiratory Disease.
Continuous monitoring of pulse oximetry (SpO2 ) is recommended during the 6-min walk test (6MWT) to ensure that the lowest SpO2 is recorded. In this case, severe exercise-induced desaturation (EID; SpO2 < 80%) triggers walking interruption by the examiner. Our main objective was to assess the impact of this approach on 6MWT distance in patients with chronic respiratory diseases and, second, to evaluate the safety of the test without interruption due to severe EID. ⋯ Interruption driven by severe EID reduced the walked distance during the 6MWT. No serious adverse event, in turn, was observed in subjects with severe desaturation without real-time SpO2 assessment.