Humana Inc., one of the leading health and well-being companies of country, and Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., an international pharmaceutical company with almost a century of experience in respiratory health, declared today the publication of a latest research indicating an association between non-adherence to medications for several chronic diseases and non-adherence to COPD medication. This new research was released in Volume 12, 2017 of the academic journal, International Journal of COPD.
COPD is a progressive respiratory disease featured by increased breathlessness, frequent coughing, wheezing and tightness in the chest. However there is no cure for COPD, healthcare providers mostly opt to prescribe daily maintenance medications to treat symptoms and mitigate the threat of exacerbations, which are a sudden onset of COPD symptoms that can lead to hospitalizations or even death.
“Because individuals living with COPD are mostly diagnosed with another chronic disease, like cardiovascular disease or diabetes, we created this new research to explore the relationship between adherence to regular medicines for these other diseases and adherence to daily maintenance medicines for COPD,” claimed Phil Schwab with Humana’s Comprehensive Health Insights, who is research co-author and investigator. “The study results indicated sufferers who are likely to be non-adherent to other medicines are also likely to be non-adherent to their COPD medication.”
Provided the consistency in patterns of medication adherence between COPD medication and medications for other chronic ailments, the authors speculated that there might be usual factors that negatively impact the medication adherence in general. Such factors might involve the deficiency of coordinated healthcare or behavioral and socioeconomic characteristics of the patient population like low health literacy, forgetfulness or low income.
“These findings are significant, because they assist to guide physicians on how best to support COPD sufferers with historically low adherence in taking their medications so they can acquire optimal health results,” stated Dr. Andrew Renda, M.D. MPH, Bold Goal Director for Humana. “Instead to focus on the number and type of comorbidities with COPD, holistic adherence improvement attempts should deal access, affordability, and most significantly, education on how these medications make better symptoms and quality of life while decreasing the risk of exacerbations.”
“Boehringer Ingelheim is honored to partner with Humana on this significant study that gives new insights into the significant issue of treatment adherence in people living with COPD and other chronic diseases,” claimed Danny McBryan, MD, Head, Clinical Development & Medical Affairs, Respiratory, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. “For over forty years, we’ve had an unwavering commitment to the COPD community, and we’ll sustain to support significant research attempts that strive to give new answers and new hope from persons living with COPD.”
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