A Home-based Intervention to Promote Mindful Breathing Awareness Through Pursed-lip Breathing Training for COPD Patients

A total of 50 adults diagnosed with COPD will be enrolled in this study. Half of the subjects will be randomized to receive home-based pulmonary rehabilitation with the mindful breathing module (intervention group) and half will receive home-based pulmonary rehabilitation (control group). Each subject will be consented and trained and then participate in either the intervention or control group. Both groups entail one week of baseline and twelve weeks of home-based pulmonary rehabilitation (health coaching plus activity monitoring). The intervention group will also receive the mindful breathing module during the twelve weeks of home-based pulmonary rehabilitation. The Chronic Respiratory Disease Questionnaire (CRQ) will be administered at baseline, week 12 (after the intervention) and week 24 as the investigators will follow the patients for 3 months after the intervention to document the sustainability of the effects (behavior change).

Inclusion criteria

• Patients must be ≥40 years old
• Patients must have a diagnosis COPD documented by pulmonary function testing; breathlessness of score 2 or higher by the Medical Research Council Score
• Patients must be a current or previous smoker with at least 10 pack-years of cigarette smoking

Exclusion criteria

• Patients with a high likelihood of being lost to follow-up or contact (patients with active chemical dependency), are planning to move out of the state; or are not living in the healthcare area
• Patients with an inability to provide good data or follow commands (patients who are disoriented, have a severe neurologic or psychiatric condition)
• Patients with an inability to do mild exercise (patients who have orthopedic-neurologic problems; patients who have severe heart failure, characterized by an ejection fraction of <20% or by New York Heart Association Class IV disease; patients who should be at complete rest, confined to a bed or chair; or patients in whom any physical activity brings on discomfort and in whom symptoms occur at rest).