Optimising telemedicine for the elderly

Air is considered life-giving. COPD is a progressive disease involving the respiratory system that makes it difficult to breathe. To top it all, COPD is often accompanied by other co-morbidities such as chronic heart failure (CHF) and sleep disordered breathing (SDB). Needless to say, such patients have poor life expectancy as well as poor quality of life.

The EU-funded 'Clinical trials for elderly patients with multiple disease' (CHROMED) project is investigating the utility of telemedicine-based health care models for elderly people with COPD and cardiovascular co-morbidities.

To begin with, CHROMED members pilot-tested and optimised their information and communication technology platform. Three devices are used in this platform: a patient monitor, a lung assessment device employing forced oscillation technique, and a wearable device called Wrist Clinic to measure vital parameters.

An international multi-centric randomised control trial involving 300 patients is ongoing in Estonia, Spain, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. These European countries have different social and organisational contexts with well-established procedures for age-related disease management.

Currently 140 patients are active at the 6 pilot centres. Patients enrolled include 37 COPD cases, 27 COPD+CHF cases, 2 COPD+HF cases, 12 COPD+SDB cases and 2 COPD+CHF+SDB cases. Requisite technical assistance and training are being readily provided to ensure optimal patient outcomes.

For the first time, clinical data collection and monitoring of COPD patients with co-morbidities is being done on a daily basis. Besides elucidating COPD, project activities should help in the development of a user-friendly, customisable and effective telemedicine platform for COPD patients with cardiovascular co-morbidities.

The CHROMED platform could personalise care assistance for elderly patients with multiple diseases and improve their quality of life. This in turn will help reduce the huge socioeconomic burden of COPD and support the sustainability of European health care systems.