Obviously, the hottest topic of November is COPD Awareness Month and all the news and events that go along with it. This time of year also brings a lot of respiratory conferences! Since our first World Oxygen Day event on October 2, I’ve been traveling across the country speaking about COPD-related news and working to raise awareness. I have also been able to learn from others doing the same thing. These travels have included two major conferences that I’m excited to share with you.
The first was the American Association for Respiratory Care International Respiratory Congress in Nashville, TN. This conference is aimed at respiratory therapists like me. It is a great opportunity to learn about new therapies on the horizon. This year one of the highlights was new technology that can compare CT scan records and another kind of scan called fluoroscopy. This comparison helps look more closely at how air moves in and out of parts of the lung. Using this kind of test, we may be able to better judge which areas of someone’s lungs are still healthy and which need more attention. We may one day even be able to use tests like this to replace things like spirometry for diagnosis and follow-up. That’s right, maybe someday you won’t have to keep blowing as hard as you can through that little tube!
Of course, new gadgets aren’t the only thing at AARC. There are always a wide variety of talks that help health care professionals learn about the latest research throughout the field. One of these talks was laser-focused on COPD. The 11th Annual Dr. Thomas L. Petty Memorial Lecture, named after one of the greatest pulmonologists of our time (not to mention a huge inspiration for World Oxygen Day), was given by Dr. Carolyn Rochester from the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Rochester spoke about the recent major changes in how we look at COPD, including that we cannot look at this as simply a “smoker’s disease” any longer. Dr. Rochester also gave a lot of shout-outs to her specific passion: improving access to high-quality pulmonary rehab programs.
I was fortunate to give a presentation this year as well. For the last year and a half or so, I have been working alongside several other respiratory therapists from across the country and two of our own COPD Foundation advocacy champions, Jean Rommes and John Linnell. Our goal is to write better guidelines for sending people new to oxygen therapy home from the hospital. We started the process by looking at the most important gaps in knowledge and turning them into research questions. Then, with the help of a medical librarian, we started researching all the available studies and papers about oxygen therapy to try and find the answers. Those answers can help us make recommendations so people with oxygen therapy can get the best possible outcomes. We hope to be done with this work sometime in 2024. I was able to give an update on why we chose oxygen therapy and how far along we are in the process.
The next week was not just a national conference, but an international one. We have mentioned the GOLD conference here in our blogs before, so it may sound familiar. GOLD is a group of lung experts that go through every piece of new COPD research yearly to make new recommendations for care. This year started off with an entire day of talks about COPD. It included topics from prevention to diagnosis and treatment. However, this year also had a new feature. GOLD worked with us at the Foundation to create new patient- and caregiver-focused discussions as well. We paired several of our advocacy captains with expert health care professionals to help the audience better understand different parts of COPD. Appropriately, having just observed Veteran’s Day a few days before, we started with two veterans. Dr. Karolyn Smith, diagnosed with COPD after exposure to burn pits in Iraq, and Dr. Courtney Crim, talking about medications. Next up was Caroline Gainer and international panelist Dr. Wisia Wedzicha teaching us about exacerbations. Ironically, Caroline came down with a flare-up days before and was not able to join us in person but shared her most recent experience over Zoom. Then Dr. Rochester made another appearance, this time alongside Phyliss DiLorenzo, who talked about (you guessed it) the importance of pulmonary rehab. I was able to see John Linnell again for the first time in several years when he spoke about oxygen equipment with Dr. Barry Make. Finally, legendary pulmonologist Dr. Gerry Criner spoke about new options like lung valves alongside two of his own patients, Ronny Neal and Bernice Shah, who shared their experiences. A recording of the event will be available in December.
All in all, these were great experiences. I am truly thankful for the chances I have had to learn more about the latest and greatest therapies out there. I’m also very thankful for the chance to help bring that knowledge to all of you! We will continue to build all this new information into our projects and resources throughout 2024. Here’s to working together!
Any other questions about new therapies on the horizon? Did you watch the GOLD event webinar? I would love to hear from you in the comments!