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COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)

 

COPD has become one of the most common diseases in the world and it is projected to be the third leading cause of death by 2030. According to the WHO 80 million people suffer from moderate to severe COPD. Since COPD is not diagnosed until it becomes clinically apparent, prevalence and mortality data greatly underestimate the socioeconomic burden of COPD.

 
  • COPD is the cause of approximately 20% of all acute admissions in medical wards in the hospitals.
  • COPD patients often stay several days in hospital when they are admitted and the readmission rate is approximately 24% in one month.

 

About 7.5 % of all COPD patients are considerably handicapped in their every day life. COPD patients with a severe state of the disease are suffering from considerable limitations in their every day life due to the severe breathlessness in both activity and in rest.

The effect of medical treatment is limited and a great part of the patients are living with reduced level of functioning, inactivity, frustration and social isolation.

 

Symptoms of COPD:

  • Breathlessness
  • Coughing (with sputum), cough attacks
  • Weight loss (breathing problems often results in reduced meal sizes)
  • Increased infections (decreased immune response)
  • Fatique and lack of concentration
 

As COPD develops, patients will experience episodes of acute exacerbations. An acute exacerbation of COPD is a sudden worsening of COPD symptoms (shortness of breath, quantity and color of sputum) that typically lasts for several days. Afterwards the lung function will be reduced compared to the lung function before the exacerbation. The lung function will never be restored again, though medication, training programs etc. can help ease the breathing and thereby the well-being and quality of life for the patients.

 

The RTX3370/RTX3371 is designed to collect vital signs from devices like oximeters, blood pressure monitors and spirometers. In addition to the vital signs monitoring, the RTX3370/RTX3371 can ask patients optional symptomatic questions to support the clinical staff when evaluating the patient. This can be a very important factor regarding COPD patients. Subjective symptoms as the degree of breathlessness (is it getting worse?), coughing and presence and colour of sputum (changes in colour) are important signs when recognizing an acute exacerbation.

COPD patients are often monitored over a longer period and in their own home. By monitoring vital signs like SpO2 level and blood pressure in combination with symptomatic questions for the patients, the clinical staff can get very good indications for the stability of a patient. Occasions of acute exacerbation may be predicted and thereby avoided. With the right regulation of treatment to avoid an acute exacerbation, admission to the hospitalization may not be necessary.  

Measuring vital signs and answering symptomatic questions can also help the patients to become more aware of their own symptoms and thereby help them to react to their symptoms much earlier and thereby avoid worsening of the disease.

 

The RTX3370/RTX3371 can be configured with specific devices and questions. For COPD this could be a specific oximeter, a specific blood pressure monitor and questions to be posed every day after vital sign data from these devices are received. The number, order and type (simple yes/no or multiple choice) of questions are predefined. Questions and the progress of a ‘question tree’ are defined in scripts that can be downloaded to the RTX3370/RTX3371 remotely, if there is a need for updating or renewing the questions.

Since all content (external devices, questions, reminders, etc) of the RTX3370/RTX3371 is configurable it can easily be configured to be used for other chronic disease groups or even combinations of disease groups. The flexibility of the RTX3370/RTX3371 is great.

 

The RTX3370/RTX3371 is designed to be very simple to use, very few and large buttons, a large display and a speaker for vocal support. This is advantageous since COPD patients are often elderly people and/or people with limited energy for even small efforts.

Use of the RTX3370/RTX3371 does not require knowledge or interest in technology. All data, vital signs and/or questions/answers are automatically sent to a clinical database by use of a normal residual telephone line (RTX3370) or by GSM/GPRS (RTX3371).

 
 

RTX3370/RT3371 supported devices for COPD:

  • Nonin Onyx II oximeter (Bluetooth)
  • Nonin Ipod oximeter (cable)
  • Nonin 4100 oximeter (Bluetooth)
  • Mindray oximeter (IR or cable)
  • A&D Blood pressure monitor (Bluetooth)
  • A&D Blood pressure monitor (cable)
  • IEM Stabilograph Blood pressure monitor (Bluetooth)
  • ViaSys Asthma monitor (Bluetooth)
  • MIR Spirotel spirometer (cable)

Download this information as PDF

 

Tunstall Telehealth Managed Services


Tunstall has in-depth expertise across all aspects of the delivery of a successful telehealth program.

This includes home monitoring equipment, data management solutions and clinical triage applications, system integration, training, home installation services (commissioning and decommissioning), maintenance, response center with service desk and technical triage services.

The Tunstall Managed Services make sure that the clinical staff can focus on evaluating valid clinical information without being distressed by dealing with the technology behind.