VIDEO: Ways physicians can support patients with COPD, caregivers

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Trendline: COPD

Patient Perspective

April 10, 2024

2 min watch

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Transcript

Editor’s note: This is an automatically generated transcript, which has been slightly edited for clarity. Please notify editor@healio.com if there are concerns regarding accuracy of the transcription.

RUTLAND: So Midge and Lonnie, you spent a lot of time talking about COPD today. I want to ask you guys a particular question because I think it's important for us to understand the answer. What do you want out of your physicians? That's the first question. The second question is, how can we advocate for patients like you then?

MIDGE WILSON: What I want from my physician is understanding. Don't shove a drug at me and not tell me what it's about. Don't shove a drug at me and not tell me what the major side effects are because there are some really crucial side effects that I may need to know about. Also, I want to know what is the current medication on the market that maybe I could try. I've been on this medication for so long, is there something else out there that I could try that could probably help me more than what I'm on now?

RUTLAND: I was going to ask you, Lonnie, like, how do we support you? Caregivers are with patients a lot now, which I love, but how do we support the caregiver?

LONNIE WILSON: Well, to support the caregiver, I believe there has to be a consensus from the doctor to the patient as well. A lot of times, I get frustrated as a caregiver because maybe I don't fully understand something, or it just seems like sometimes the physician is just ready to see the next patient. So it's like a check the block thing. "Okay, I've seen you two months ago. I see you now. How's it going? Okay, well, we'll just keep that going" sort of thing. So just, you know, treat people as humans. Let us know possible treatments in the future. Other than that, I think that's about it because my main concern is my lovely spouse here.

RUTLAND: Understood. That helps us a lot. I really appreciate your guys' comments today, your answers to the questions. It's going to be something that helps us out in the future. Midge, I know you work a lot with the American Lung Association. I'm one of the spokespeople with the American Lung Association, so I'm sure we'll work together in the future. Appreciate you guys being here. Thank you so, so much.

MIDGE WILSON: Thank you, Doctor.

LONNIE WILSON: Thank you, Doctor.

Healio Trendline, in collaboration with Healthline, presents a conversation between Cedric “Jamie” Rutland, MD, patient advocate Midge Wilson, and her partner, Lonnie Wilson. They discuss what patients need most from physicians, the importance of educating patients on the newest treatment options and how to provide support to caregivers. To see more of their conversation, including topics such as misinformation in COPD and exercise recommendations for patients, head to Healthline’s Social Checkup: COPD.

Disclosures: Rutland reports consulting for AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GSK, Regeneron, Sanofi and Verona.