People living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) find it difficult to learn chronic disease management skills such as knowing how and when to use their inhaled medication, how to get enough exercise, how to look after their sleep and other health habits, and when to ask for help. Health care professionals rely on their patient’s self-report of current health status in order to best support their patient’s self-management skills.
However, self-report may not be accurate. Biometric monitoring, where patients use wearable devices to measure and track their health status, may provide a more complete picture than self-report, and may also detect early changes in health status before the patient is aware.
Project Objective
We will test if biometric monitoring sensors worn as a wristband and attached to inhaler devices can accurately monitor the physical activity, sleep habits, and inhaler use of people with COPD. We will also determine if this information alerts health care professionals to self-management situations that should be addressed.
By studying how we can use monitoring systems to help people with COPD look after their own health, we will learn more about how telehealth may improve the chronic disease and pulmonary rehabilitation management of people with COPD.
How will you undertake your work?
We will recruit adults diagnosed with COPD who attend pulmonary rehabilitation programs. Each participant will wear a wristband to measure sleep and physical activity and will use a special case for their inhaler medications to track inhaler use. Devices are also available to measure exercise performance during virtual classes. We will ask the participants to live their normal day-to-day lives, while the sensors send information on the participant’s medication use, physical activity, and sleep quality to their rehab/clinic health caregivers every day. The caregivers will use the information to decide how the participant is doing and whether they need a change in care, such as more education, change in an exercise regimen, or if they should see a doctor if they are having a flare-up of their COPD. We will measure health outcomes at the end of the study, and will also ask how the participants and the health care professionals feel about using the biometric monitoring equipment.
What is unique about this project?
There have been previous studies that have examined how biometric monitoring can be used to identify patients who are having a flare-up of their COPD. Many of these studies used systems that required patients to input information on a daily basis and did not identify other care needs related to chronic disease management or pulmonary rehabilitation. This study will investigate a system that is simple to use and may improve the rehabilitation care of people with COPD.