Air as a Placebo: Increasing the Respiratory Performance of People With COPD Through Simple Expectations of Improvement
Status:
Recruiting
Trial end date:
2022-12-31
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) is a disease of the respiratory system
characterised by irreversible airway obstruction of varying severity. The disease (known as
COPD, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) is progressive and is associated with a state of
chronic inflammation of the lung tissue, which leads to a real remodelling of the bronchi
causing a significant reduction in airway flow. Among the possible treatments, while the
placebo is considered as an inert treatment, lacking any intrinsic therapeutic properties,
there is evidence in the literature that not all placebos are equivalent and some are more
effective than others, as for example in the case of migraine or osteoarthritis. The
differences found between different types of placebos (e.g. oral, subcutaneous,
intra-articular...) indicate that placebos are not inert but rather consist of multiple
psychosocial elements that are part of the ritual of the therapeutic act. This is also the
context for the studies by Lacasse et al. (for the International Nocturnal Oxygen (INOX)
Research Group et al., 2017) and Jarosh et al., who investigated the effects of oxygen
therapy both during sleep and during the course of daily life, studying its influences
through the use of placebo in patients suffering from hypoxemia. However, in the literature,
there are no studies investigating the role of oxygen (O2) during the performance of a test
such as the Walking Test, otherwise known as the 6 Minute Walking Test (6MWT) compared with a
placebo in patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), nor whether the use of
the latter would lead to comparable results.