TOPLINE:

In patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or interstitial lung disease (ILD), adding directed fan-to-face therapy during a supervised, symptom-guided exercise program reduced breathlessness during sessions and yielded similar gains in exercise endurance and symptom burden to no-fan therapy.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers conducted a randomized trial to assess whether fan-to-face therapy boosts exercise endurance and reduces exertional breathlessness during a 5‑week supervised training program in patients with COPD or ILD.
• A total of 23 patients were assigned to receive 5 weeks of thrice-weekly supervised exercise training with fan-to-face therapy (n = 12; mean age, 67.6 years; 41% female) or without fan-to-face therapy (n = 11; mean age, 71.2 years; 54% female).
• The supervised training included 15 individualized aerobic sessions; patients in the fan-to-face group received facial airflow from a standing fan positioned to direct airflow to the second and third trigeminal nerve branches, whereas patients in the no-fan therapy group completed the same exercise sessions without fan airflow.
• A minimally clinically important difference was defined as a change of 101 seconds in exercise endurance time (EET) or 1 point on the Modified Borg category ratio 0-10 (mBorg-CR10) breathlessness scale — used to assess patients’ breathlessness intensity, with higher scores indicating greater severity — at isotime.
• The primary outcome was the change in EET — the duration of loaded pedaling during constant work rate cardiopulmonary exercise testing — from baseline to post-training. The co-primary outcome was the change in isotime breathlessness intensity rating — the symptom rating at the longest equivalent submaximal time that each patient completed during constant work rate cardiopulmonary exercise testing — from baseline to post-training.

TAKEAWAY:

• Patients in both the fan-to-face therapy group and the no-fan therapy group showed significant increases in EET from baseline to post-exercise training (P < .05 for both).
• Patients in both the fan-to-face therapy group and the no-fan therapy group demonstrated significant decreases in isotimes breathlessness intensity ratings from baseline to post-exercise training (P < .05 for both).
• Overall, 83% and 72% of patients in the fan-to-face therapy group and the no-fan therapy group, respectively, achieved a decrease in breathlessness at isotime that met or exceeded the minimally clinically important difference of 1 mBorg-CR10 unit.

IN PRACTICE:

“[Our] findings point to a potential ‘Goldilocks’ airflow range for optimal comfort and symptom relief, which may also vary depending on context, such as during acute exercise versus postexercise recovery,” the authors of the study wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Rachelle Aucoin, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada. It was published online on March 5, 2026, in European Respiratory Journal.

LIMITATIONS:

The trial was modest in size and short in duration. Randomization resulted in a baseline imbalance, with patients with ILD concentrated in the no-fan group, necessitating subgroup analyses and limiting the generalizability of the findings. The trial was unblinded and used no sham fan; therefore, placebo or expectation effects could not be ruled out.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was supported by the Québec Respiratory Health Research Network. One author reported holding a Canada Research Chair in Clinical Exercise and Respiratory Physiology, awarded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.