Remote monitoring plus health coaching impacts quality of life in patients with COPD
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Remote patient monitoring with health coaching improved quality of life, self-management, daily physical activity, sleep and depression scores in patients with COPD, according to new data published in Annals of the American Thoracic Society.
“We found that remote patient monitoring with health coaching produces a significant and clinically meaningful improvement in the disease-specific physical and emotional quality of life in moderate to severe COPD patients,” Roberto P. Benzo, MD, MS, founding director in the division of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at the Mindful Breathing Laboratory at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and colleagues wrote. “This study is the first study of remote patient monitoring in COPD that improves quality of life: three previous remote patient monitoring studies have been ineffective in improving quality of life [and] health care utilization.”
The multicenter clinical trial included 375 adults with COPD (mean age, 69 years; 59% women). All patients were randomly assigned to 12-week remote patient monitoring with health coaching (n = 188) or wait-list usual care (n = 187). The 12-week group had weekly health coaching calls and a remote monitoring system that included a computer tablet, an activity monitor to wear at all times and an oximeter used during daily exercise. The usual care group received an educational packet of 12 self-management themes for weekly self-study.
The primary outcomes were physical and emotional quality of life measured by the Chronic Respiratory Disease Questionnaire (CRQ) summary score.
Researchers reported a clinically meaningful difference at 12 weeks in physical (difference = 0.54 points; P < .001) and emotional (difference = 0.51 points; P < .001) CRQ summary scores between patients in the intervention group compared with the control group.
Secondary outcomes of domains including self-management, daily physical activity, sleep and depression scores all also improved in patients in the intervention group compared with the control group (P < .01 for all).
These changes maintained at 24 weeks.
“[R]emote patient monitoring with health coaching represents a sustainable alternative for individuals that cannot attend conventional pulmonary rehabilitation or prefer a home intervention focused on lifestyle and behavior change,” the researchers wrote. “Health coaching with lifestyle monitoring aimed to promote wellness, defined by the WHO has an active process of becoming aware of and making choices towards a fulfilling life and a state of balance and not merely the absence of disease.”