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Diagnosis and Management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Putting Guidelines into Practice

Author and Disclosure Information

This supplement to Federal Practitioner on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), sponsored by a grant from Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Pfizer Inc, was developed with the aim of helping primary care providers in federal practice (chiefly, within the health care systems of the VA and DoD) make sense of and

apply evidence-based recommendations for diagnosing and managing COPD. It is our hope that, after reading this supplement, you will be able to:

• Identify patients at risk for COPD and recognize the disease in its early stages.
• Confirm a suspected COPD diagnosis and assess disease severity using spirometry and other appropriate measures.
• Effectively apply the "step-up" approach to risk modification and pharmacologic treatment of stable COPD.
• Discuss the multisystem approach to COPD management, including the proper use of oxygen supplementation, pulmonary rehabilitation, lung volume reduction, and lung transplantation.
• Describe measures used to reduce the frequency and severity of acute COPD exacerbations.
• Identify conditions that are associated or commonly coexist with COPD and discuss key points of their management in the setting of COPD.