1. The Detrimental Effects of Anxiety Secondary to COPD and its facilitation of Disease Progression and Decreased Quality of Life Ashley Anglin

2. Abstract   Many patients that have been diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease become “frequent flyers” each year to the Emergency Departments of hospitals nationwide. Patients who had also been diagnosed with depression or anxiety were reported to have visited the hospital much more often than those who were not. A reported 43 percent of the patients studied were diagnosed with Anxiety secondary to COPD.   It has also been proven that 53 percent of the patients that have anxiety secondary to COPD have a greater likelihood of relapse of exacerbations than those who do not shown sign of anxiety (Dahlen, 2003). A calm and reassuring approach to the treatment of exacerbations is essential in these patients, which is where pulmonary rehabilitation comes into play.   Pulmonary Rehabilitation provides patient with psychosocial support,professional counseling, and antidepressant therapy, if indicated. Dyspnea is the correlating factor between anxiety and COPD. Pulmonary Rehabilitation helps to relieve this breathlessness in patients and also helps to enable them to perform activities of daily living without severe dyspnea. Although there are many factors that can disrupt the success rate of pulmonary rehabilitation such as status of condition when entering rehab and financial/social resources that enable or disable patients from attending (Thorax, 2002).

3. Methods  Purpose To produce outcomes concerning the correlation of anxiety secondary to COPD  Design a blind, controlled, and randomized study based on outpatients involved in Pulmonary Rehabilitation and those not enrolled in the program. A blind study would prevent any conscious or subconscious bias from entering the results accumulated. I would conducts this study over a period of 3 months on patients that have been diagnosed with COPD.

4. Review of Literature  Dahlen, 2003 In response to the question of rather anxiety and COPD are related, Dahlen concludes that 43% of patients have been diagnosed with both anxiety and COPD. Of the people who were observed in this study 53% of patients had a relapse in exacerbations in 1 month. This study uses the HAD questionnaire to assess the levels of depression in these patients. This results of this questionnaire showed that the patients with the highest scores were the patients that were the hardest to treat for COPD exacerbations. It took these patients longer to recover and their quality of life was significantly decreased.  Adams, Sanchez; 2007 There are many systemic effects experienced by patients with the diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Psychiatric effects of COPD include anxiety, sleep disturbances, and depression. Those patients that are determined to have severe obstruction have a 2.5 times higher risk of depression than controlled subjects. Another frequent co-morbidity in patients diagnosed with COPD is osteoporosis, which also increases with the severity of the airway obstruction (Adams, Sanchez, 2007)

5. Conclusion/Results  In Conclusion, anxiety is prevalent among 40-50% of COPD patients. It significantly affects their quality of life and causes the detrimental effects of this disease to progress faster, therefore exacerbating the disease.