Blog

We are delighted to announce we have received a grant award from the Medtronic Healthy Communities Fund to roll out our “Exercise, COPD & Me” project to 8 new groups nationwide. Along with six other deserving charities we received the grant at an announcement event yesterday at the Royal College of Physicians, hosted by Medtronic and The Community Foundation for Ireland and attended by Minister Kevin Humphreys.

The purpose of the Medtronic Healthy Communities Fund is to promote health at community levels, especially for those who have been traditionally at risk for non-communicable disease (NCDs) or underserved by existing related healthcare services. The work of Medtronic’s Fund is aligned with the Government’s ‘Healthy Ireland’ framework, which aims to improve national health and well-being indicators over the next generation by focusing, in particular, on prevention and cross-sectoral collaboration.

Our application came under the grant fund objective of Health Access. COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) is an umbrella term for Chronic Lung Disease. For most people with COPD, less air flows in and out of their airways, causing shortness of breath and difficulty in breathing.

According to COPD Support Ireland, there are an estimated 380,000 Irish adults living with COPD, however only 110,000 of them have been diagnosed. There is an unmet need for all elements of management for people with COPD including exercise programmes which can help increase physical capacity, improve health outcomes, decrease anxiety around breathlessness and provide greater independence.

While there is a minority of people who have access to hospital based pulmonary debilitation programmes there is a serious deficit for on-going community based exercise programmes.

This grant award will fund Stage Two of the Exercise, COPD & Me project by expanding from the original four programmes to an additional eight groups based in Dublin, Mayo, Cork, Sligo and Ennis. Taking place over 6 months, the programmes will be run in conjunction with COPD Support Ireland groups as well as new members recruited through local GPs, pharmacies and Primary Care Centres. Participants’ needs and goals will be assessed pre, during and post the exercise class to determine the efficacy of this type of programme for people living with COPD.

Stage One of the project took place in 2014/2015 with results showing

• 70% of participants increased their muscle strength
• 70% of participants increased their agility
• 70% increased their flexibility
• 6% increased their functional capacity

We expect the results of Stage Two to reflect similar patterns.

It is envisaged that we will roll out the Exercise, COPD & Me project to an additional 12 groups over the next two years.

From Siel Bleu Ireland, we would sincerely like to thank the grant committee, Medtronic and The Community Foundation for Ireland for their support in this project and we hope we can start to make a real change for Irish COPD patients.