  Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) can be fatal and is challenging
to live with due to its severe symptoms. Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is one
of the managements means to maintain COPD in a stable status. However,
implementation of PR in the UK has been challenging due to the environmental
and personal barriers faced by patients, which hinder their uptake, adherence,
and completion of the programmes. Moreover, increased exercise capacity
following PR does not always translate into physical activity (PA) and
unfortunately, can lead back to exercise capacity seen prior to PR. Current
alternative solutions using telerehabilitation methods have limitations on
addressing these accessibility problems, and no clear conclusion can be drawn
on the efficacy of telerehabilitation in enhancing the sustainability of PR
outcomes via promoting PA in patients' everyday life. In this work, the authors
propose a novel design of sensor-based assistive product with the aim of
facilitating PR and promoting PA maintenance in a home-based setting.
Prototypes of different levels of fidelity are presented, followed by an
evaluation plan for future research directions.
