Digital Inhalers for Asthma or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Scientific Perspective

Abstract

Impressive advances in inhalation therapy for patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have occurred in recent years. However, important gaps in care remain, particularly relating to poor adherence to inhaled therapies. Digital inhaler health platforms which incorporate digital inhalers to monitor time and date of dosing are an effective disease and medication management tool, promoting collaborative care between clinicians and patients, and providing more in-depth understanding of actual inhaler use. With advances in technology, nearly all inhalers can be digitalized with add-on or embedded sensors to record and transmit data quantitating inhaler actuations, and some have additional capabilities to evaluate inhaler technique. In addition to providing an objective and readily available measure of adherence, they allow patients to interact with the device directly or through their self-management smartphone application such as via alerts and recording of health status. Clinicians can access these data remotely and

Analyzing the Treatment of Patients with Acute Exacerbation of COPD with the Aid of Intelligent Diagnosis Method

“…The authors have presented a narrative review that explains the challenges and requirements in the management of COPD. The study in [ 12 ] focuses on digital inhalers and their usage in treatment of COPD. Digital inhalers are also proposed as western solutions for COPD, which are capable of deciding the time and quantity of inhalers for treating COPD.…”

“…The heat clearing phlegm mixture can effectively improve patients' respiratory symptoms by clearing heat and phlegm, and relieving coughing and wheezing [ 16 ]. The vibration sputum excretion instrument can promote early expectoration, relieve bronchospasm, and increase blood oxygen concentration, leading to pulmonary function recovery [ 12 ]. Relevant data at home and abroad indicates that there is little research on the combination of the two in treating patients with acute exacerbations of COPD [ 17 ].…”

“…e vibration sputum excretion instrument can promote early expectoration, relieve bronchospasm, and increase blood oxygen concentration, leading to pulmonary function recovery [12]. Relevant data at home and abroad indicates that there is little research on the combination of the two in treating patients with acute exacerbations of COPD [17].…”

Improving Medication Adherence in Asthma

“…A detailed review of the available devices has been published by Chan et al recently. 53 One major advantage of digital devices is the number of ways that the data can be summarized. The most commonly used metric from digital adherence monitors is the number of doses taken relative to the number prescribed; this can easily be used to reflect how effective an adherence intervention has been.…”

Trust but Verify

“…3,4 Bluetooth-connected inhalers offer a variety of avenues to improve adherence ranging from direct patient feedback with reminders to records of use maintained in the cloud for subsequent prescriber review. 5 Although promising, this approach has not been widely adopted. Finally, and most demanding, the serial measurement of exhaled nitric oxide during directly observed therapy can distinguish between poor adherence in type 2 asthma and adequate adherence in severe and unresponsive type 2 asthma.…”