Psychosocial-Behavioral Therapy for Patients With Advanced COPD and Depression

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the third leading cause of the death in the US. Although COPD is mostly preventable, there is no cure. Thus, care of patients with COPD is primarily focused on symptom palliation with the goal of improving quality of life for both patients and their families. These goals are highly consistent with core principles of palliative care. Dyspnea is the most distressing symptom for patients. Even optimal disease-directed treatment provides only partial relief from dyspnea. Depression is consistently associated with worse dyspnea, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship are poorly understood. Since existing treatment for dyspnea has only limited success and there is evidence that treating depression alleviates pain, we propose that by improving mood, we may be more successful in alleviating dyspnea. Psychosocial-behavioral therapy (PBT) which is focused on increasing pleasant events and improving problem solving skills has been shown to have immediate and sustained effects on depressive symptoms in patients with dementia and post-stroke holds tremendous promise for efficacy in advanced COPD. Testing the use of novel technologies to provide efficacious interventions such as PBT to patients with advanced disease is critical for translational palliative care research