November 19th is World Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Day

Many patients across the world take advantage of the Living well with COPD program, developed by Dr. Jean Bourbeau at the McGill University Health Centre’s (MUHC) Montreal Chest Institute (MCI). By visiting the website livingwellwithcopd.com, the program participants (clinicians and patients with COPD) learn how to control and manage the disease’s evolution. The program now offers tools in 11 different languages and is growing internationally every day.

Last October, a delegation of seven healthcare professionals from Hong-Kong came to the MCI to participate in a two-week training session with the team that manages the program. “Each one in the cohort comes from different health organizations in Hong-Kong. One of the objectives of our visit is to gain insight on how to teach patients to self-manage their disease to share this knowledge when we return home,” explains Chan Ping Yven Eric, a physiotherapist and member of the Chinese delegation.

In Canada, COPD is the leading cause of hospitalization and the fourth highest cause of death. People who suffer from COPD have to deal with obstructed airways due to chronic bronchitis, emphysema, or both. They cough, are easily out of breath and can develop chronic respiratory infections because of the disease. COPD is incurable, but it can be treated. 

“A customized action and follow-up plan, including medication, a healthy lifestyle and specific exercises can greatly diminish symptoms,” explains Dr. Bourbeau. Managing COPD rests in part on the patient being informed and motivated, but it also rests on the physicians, nurses and healthcare professionals’ approach in treating the patient. “Clinicians must work together and share information in order to provide the patient with the best therapeutic options, which are in constant evolution,” he adds.

Staying informed and developing practical skills is precisely what the Living well with COPD program allows, thanks to the research and teaching materials developed over the course of the last 15 years. The benefits for the patient have been confirmed in a number of publications, and studies have shown that the program generated a decrease of 40 per cent in the number of visits to the emergency room and hospital admissions, and was profitable for the healthcare network.

Thanks to the support of its partners, such as the Fonds de Recherche en santé du Québec’s respiratory healthcare network, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Quebec asthma and COPD network,  and thanks to the program’s founding company Boehringer-Ingelheim, as well as Almirall, AZ, GSK and Novartis; Dr. Bourbeau’s team is currently pursuing close to a dozen research projects, assessing the program’s multiple aspects, improving the tools offered and encouraging healthcare professionals to focus on an integrated care approach, where self-management is at the centre of the overall management of COPD patients.

The team of COPD and Lung Rehabilitation program at the Montreal Chest Institute along with October 2014 Hong-Kong delegation. From left to right, back row: Eric Chan, Rita Abi Maroun, Yik Han Lee, Ka Ki Tse, Isabelle Drouin, Adrian Leung, Louise Auclair, Josée Fortin, Kermit Chan, Lap Chi Chan, Chi Tao So; front row: Danielle Beaucage, Dr. Jean Bourbeau, Maria Sedeno.