Self Care Week: controlling Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease with an app
Posted: 16th November 2020
As part of Self Care Week, a campaign dedicated to raising awareness of the importance of looking after your health and wellbeing, we are looking at an app called ‘myCOPD’ that can help patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) self-manage their condition, improve their symptoms, reduce breathlessness and improve overall wellbeing.
The app includes lots of useful information and videos to help users with things like how to use an inhaler, monitor COPD symptoms and take part in online rehabilitation classes as well as containing educational videos to better understand what COPD is. You can find out more about the app by watching the video below.
The Yorkshire & Humber AHSN is collaborating with West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership to help spread the adoption of this application to a variety of health and care services across the region.
Dr Katherine Hickman, a GP and Respiratory Lead for West Yorkshire & Harrogate, said:
For the majority of their time patients with COPD are managing their condition at home by themselves. It is so important that as health care professionals we enable them to do this safely and confidently.
They also need to be able to recognise when they are starting to deteriorate earlier rather than later and to contact their GP before they end up in crisis and needing to go to A&E. MyCOPD is an app that can be used to help us support our patients in managing their COPD independently and to reduce their reliance on their GP or hospital. It allows patients to manage their condition with confidence and to gain a true understanding of how they can support themselves to live with COPD. The app contains a whole range of features including videos on correct inhaler technique and breathing exercises as well as a medication diary and a symptoms tracker
