COPD | In Spired Trial

What is COPD?

COPD is the abbreviation for 'chronic obstructive pulmonary disease'.

This disease is characterized by inflammation of the airways, airway narrowing

and destruction of lung tissue.

In Belgium more than 600.000 people suffer from this condition,

which has a great impact on their quality of life.

Often, patients experience shortness of breath during physical effort or even at rest

and they can struggle with coughing and expectoration of phlegm.

Moreover, they can go through a flare-up of the disease,

causing a faster deterioration of their lung function and general wellbeing.

A COPD flare-up (also called an exacerbation)

is a sudden and temporary worsening of the complaints that someone with COPD already has.

In simple words:

The lungs get irritated or inflamed.
One is shorter of breath, coughs more or has more phlegm than normal.
It often feels as if one is getting less air in than they are used to.
One may also have a fever, wheezing breathing, a faster heartbeat or chest tightness.
Such a flare-up can be caused by a virus, bacteria, polluted air, other triggers, but mostly it has no clear reason.

A COPD flare-up can have a large impact:

a deterioration of the lung function
experiencing more symptoms like shortness of breath, coughing or phlegm
loss of muscle strength leading to more difficulties with physical effort and activities
a decreased quality of life
a higher change of hospitalisation and mortality

It is important to treat a flare-up as soon as possible,

to limit the abovementioned consequences as much as possible.

A severe COPD flare-up can lead to hospitalisation. The current treatment of such a flare-up consists usually of following elements: