People living with chronic breathlessness are at the heart of Dr Tim Luckett’s research at IMPACCT.
Dr Luckett (pictured) is about to enter a new stage in what is now a body of work on chronic breathless that persists despite the best clinical treatment.
His latest project will be to co-design with patients, carers and clinicians a new breathlessness intervention service and evaluation framework for the ACT.
It comes after a collaboration with the Western Sydney Local Health District respiratory team, evaluating their breathlessness intervention service for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
But perhaps the most engaging project involved people who had a ‘near miss’ for an emergency hospital presentation but successfully self-managed their breathlessness at home.
“We were interested in hearing from those patient ‘experts’ about how they were successful in self-managing,” Dr Luckett said.
Self-management training can’t make the breathlessness go away but it can help people feel more in control
Dr Tim Luckett
“What we found was that it’s difficult to separate the techniques they used to manage breathlessness from their personal traits. A large part of their success was in the way they approached the challenge posed by their breathlessness: they treated it as something they enjoyed mastering.
Unfortunately, people can become so fearful of breathlessness that they stop people doing the things that makes their lifves worthwhile, leading to a downward spiral of depression and deconditioning,” Tim said.
Helping people master breathlessness is about coaching them to play to their strengths and identify the resources that can help them and teaching them to use non-pharmacological strategies like breathing techniques, positioning, relaxation and using a hand-held fan.
“Self-management training can’t make the breathlessness go away but it can help people feel more in control”, Tim said.
“That’s why helping someone to cope with breathlessness always starts by understanding how it affects them from their perspective.”
Find out more
For more information about our research impact in the Faculty of Health or for collaboration opportunities, contact:
Professor Angela Dawson
Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Health
E: Angela.Dawson@uts.edu.au
T: +61 (02) 9514 4892
PO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007 Australia