Palliativpflege und Medizin

Abstrakt

Improvement in Quality of Life in Survivors of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease with Minimal Interventions

Prateek Upadhyay, Prashant Ahlawat

The global health care burden of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is enormous. Patients who are battling COPD have a very poor quality of life and suffer physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. Many treatment modalities have been in practice for a long time, but have limitations. The consequence of disregard for quality of life has generated a lot of unmet needs for patients. These patients deserve a good quality of life and a timely institution of palliative care to maintain the continuum of care. This article aims to highlight novel modalities, preferably non invasive or minimally invasive, that can be used to alleviate the suffering of patients with COPD. Lung flute is slowly finding its way into routine clinical practice for palliation of patients with COPD. It has the potential to be used as effortlessly as a hand-held incentive spirometer that is used in hospitals day in and day out. Bronchoscopic Lung Volume Reduction or Valve Surgery, Targeted Lung Denervation therapy, Metered Cryospray in addition to research on Stem Cell therapy are novel measures with hopeful and promising results so far to improve the quality of life of COPD survivors.