A 73-year-old man with stage III COPD was accepted into a pulmonary rehabilitation program. Because of the severity of his disease, his preprogram cardiopulmonary exercise evaluation was stopped after 5 minutes because of excessive dyspnea and oxygen desaturation. He was placed on O2 but was unable to complete the study.
However, because of the desire of the patient’s physician to get him into a program of pulmonary rehabilitation and the patient’s desire to participate, the patient was put on home O2 and admitted to the program. While exercising on a treadmill with supplemental O2, the patient complained of headache and nausea. The RT stopped the exercise session and documented a significant increase in the patient’s blood pressure (220/130 mm Hg). How should the RT proceed in this case?
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