Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Burden Management

📄 Words:	1637
📝 Subject:	Pulmonology
📑 Pages:	7
📚 Topics:	COPD, Disease, Respiratory Disorders

The learning plan will be associated with developing a framework of educational lessons targeted at teaching how to overcome the burden of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The plan will incorporate three groups of learners: patients, family members, and the healthcare staff. Each group will be able to contribute to the process of developing an action plan for dealing with COPD.

Broad Instructional Goals

Broad instructional goals for the educational experience of leaders will include the following:

Patients: learning how to manage the adverse impact of COPD when the help of a healthcare professional is unavailable (Stoikova, Janssen, & Wouters, 2013).
Family members: learning how to create an environment where a patient with COPD will receive support and assistance when needed.
Healthcare staff: learning how to provide care to patients with COPD as well as how to educate them and their family members on the best practices of disease management.

The behavioral objectives for the learning plan were formulated with the help of Bloom’s taxonomy, which includes six levels of learning, such as knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Objectives for each group of learners are presented in the table below:

Level	Patients	Family Members		Healthcare Staff
1: Knowledge	Be able to share previously-learned information about COPD using recalling important facts, terms, concepts, methods of treatment, cases from life/practices. Be able to answer questions such as “What is COPD?”; “How is COPD usually treated?” etc.
2: Comprehension	Be able to show the understanding of burden COPD causes, what daily activities should be avoided, what care should be taken to elevate the burden.		Be able to demonstrate the understanding of the key procedures associated with COPD management.
3: Application	Be able to solve any arising issues linked to COPD by applying the newly learned knowledge when the help of a healthcare professional is unavailable		Be able to apply new skills when dealing with COPD patients; utilize all available information for the improvement of a patient’s health.
4: Analysis	Linking personal experience with health to the procedures of managing COPD with individual efforts.	Linking the experience of living with a COPD individual with efforts to elevate the disease burden.	Linking professional experience and expertise with helping patients with COPD overcome the burden of the disease.
5: Synthesis	Combine the newly-learned material with the knowledge a learner has already had to propose new solutions for the management of COPD.
6: Evaluation	Be able to present and defend personal opinions by evaluating the new information, the validity of the presented solutions, and the effectiveness of the efforts targeted at overcoming the burden of COPD.

Lesson Content

Patients

In their lessons, patients will be educated on the epidemiology, pathophysiology, and clinical manifestations of COPD. However, the key content of the lessons will be focused on how to keep their lungs as healthy as possible. Patients will be educated on how to eat a healthy diet (since COPD patients need to spend more energy on breathing), how to avoid chemicals in their surroundings, how to monitor their environment to avoid polluted air, as well as getting frequent check-ups and seasonal flu vaccinations to reduce the risk of infections that exasperate the burden of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Family Members

According to the research conducted by Kanervisto, Paavilainen, and Heikkila (2007), effective communication and role distribution within families are essential for the proper management of COPD. Therefore, the content of the lessons for the group of family members whose relatives suffer from COPD will be focused on teaching effective communication and collaboration practices that will address disease management. Family members will be taught on how to develop an action plan for COPD management, design a schedule for follow-ups and treatment procedures (Choudhuri, 2012), how to support their relatives in sustaining a healthy diet and lifestyle, as well as how to seek medical help in cases of emergency.

Healthcare Staff

The focus of the lesson contents for the healthcare staff will be focused on educating professionals on the most effective practices of COPD management along with techniques of providing their patients with knowledge and support. The incorporation of social studies and psychology into the content of the lessons will be an important component since healthcare professionals require an understanding of what patients with COPD and their families usually go through when trying to overcome the burden of the disease.

The sequence of Teaching Activities

Educational lessons for all three groups of learners will be structured in the same manner to achieve cohesiveness. The lesson will start by learners sharing new information they have learned previously or any knowledge on the subject matter they have for the educator to get an idea of the points that should be improved. The second part of the lesson will be associated with the educator presenting new information on the subject matter of the lesson.

The largest part of the lesson will be focused on the discussion of the new information and how it can be applied in practice. For example, in a lesson for family members in which an educator provided new information on effective communication within households, learners will be encouraged to share their ideas on how to facilitate proper interactions and avoid any misunderstandings when it comes to the management of COPD. The final section of the lesson will be made of the educator making conclusions about the success of the teaching activities. At this stage, learners will be encouraged to ask questions about the new material and share what they have learned as well as how their new knowledge will be applied in their everyday life.

Instructional Methods

For educational lessons provided to three groups of learners, the educator will use three methods of instruction, such as discovery learning, lecture, and discussion. Discovery learning is an instructional method that focuses on the personal experience of learners as a basis for their conceptual development. Because of this, it is important for the educator to first determine the level of expertise learners have to build new knowledge on the top of the existing one. A lecture is a very common method of instruction that will allow the educator to present important information to students without distractions of extra activities. Importantly, a lecture will be followed by a discussion session, which is an instructional method that involves the exchange of ideas.

If to point out the most effective approach for teaching learners how to overcome the burden of COPD, the discussion method stands out the most. By using this approach, an educator will hope to help learners develop an enhanced depth of thinking to foster information manipulation for problem-solving, rather than mere knowledge acquisition. Moreover, it is important for the educator not to dismiss the opinions and knowledge shared by learners; the instructional intent of discussions is focused on taking learners “beyond the facts” and engaging them in a more detailed treatment of the given subject (Ebert, Ebert, & Bentley, 2011).

Times Allowed for Each Activity

It is expected that each lesson will take 90 minutes, with a 10-minute break in the middle. The first portion of sharing new knowledge and sharing past experiences will take 15 minutes, which will then be followed by the 30-minute lecture portion. The next portion of the lesson that will include discussions, asking and answering questions, and offer new solutions that will take 30 minutes. The concluding section of the lesson will take 15 minutes, during which leaders and educators will share final opinions about the new material presented in the lecture portion of the lesson.

Instructional Resources and Technologies

Identification of the necessary instructional resources and technologies that can be used in class is a crucial aspect of the teaching plan. For this reason, it may be effective to differentiate between three groups of learners. While patients, their families, and the healthcare staff will all benefit from visual material and the use of technologies, the goals of their usage are different. For instance, when presented with graphic images of lungs in the state of COPD, patients and their family members may experience stress; however, the healthcare staff may not be as sensitive to the same images since they had professional experience and specialized medical education.

During the lecture portion of the lesson, all learners should be presented with visual material such as images, tables, and photographs, which could be presented either on paper or through technologies (e.g. a projector).

Both paper workbooks and electronic versions of educational material can be used during lessons, depending on the preference of learners. Moreover, the involvement of other patients or healthcare professionals can be useful instructional resources. For example, a patient that has taken COPD under control can share his or her experiences with patients involved in the process of learning. A healthcare professional experienced in working with COPD patients can become a mentor for the healthcare staff involved in the educational process.

Learning Evaluation

Evaluation of the learning outcomes is the final stage of the project implementation since it will occur after the lessons with patients, their family members, and the healthcare staff are completed. Learning outcomes will be measured in terms of four dimensions such as knowledge outcomes, skill outcomes, behavioral outcomes, and attitudes and values outcomes (Abbott, 2016). About knowledge outcomes, learners will be asked to complete a quick multiple-choice questions test to determine whether the theoretical knowledge was understandable for learners. As to behavioral outcomes, they cannot be evaluated instantly since the changes in behavior will come with time.

It can be effective to conduct a follow-up lesson with all participants after two months of the program’s completion to determine whether their behavioral outcomes changed. Lastly, attitudes and value outcomes can be measured with the help of quick surveys; it will be more effective to measure participants’ values and attitudes before lessons and after their completion to compare the two outcomes.

References

Abbott, J. (2016). How to evaluate learning outcomes. Web.

Choudhuri, A. (2012). Palliative care for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Current perspectives. Indian Journal of Palliative Care, 18(1), 6-11.

Ebert, E., Ebert, C., & Bentley, M. (2011). Methods of teaching in the classroom. Web.

Kanervisto, M., Paavilainen, E., & Heikkila, J. (2007). Family dynamics in families of severe COPD patients. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 16(8), 1498-1505.

Stoikova, A., Janssen, D., & Wouters, E. (2013). Educational programmes in COPD management interventions: A systematic review. Respiratory Medicine, 107(11), 1637-1650.