Respiratory inhalers come in a staggering array of types, contents, and methods of use. It is not uncommon for the COPD patient to use two or more types of inhalers each day. The misuse of the application of these devices is rampant, due to confusion, forgetfulness, or lack of proper education in their use. If multiple inhalers are used by the patient, many of them must be used in a particular order, and the inhalation methods may will be vastly different.
Understanding on the part of the patient and/or caregiver begins with the initial instruction in the use of inhalers by medical personnel. They must find, and use, methods of instruction that are understandable and retainable by the patient.

The study of comparing the two type of instruction is entirely feasible, while the challenges lie with studying a large enough sample of patients to encompass the ranges of COPD stages, mental capacity, and degree of compliance of the patients.

COPD is underdiagnosed. The lack of recognition of COPD risk by physicians and patients themselves is well known, with many undiagnosed COPD patients presenting for the first time with late stage COPD. Currently used cut-points based on a fixed ratio of FEV1/FVC may overestimate the number of elderly patients with COPD, particularly with mild disease, because of changes in lung volumes with aging. It has been suggested that using a cut-point based on the normal distribution of FEV1/FVC values may decrease the misclassification rate. Other strategies have been proposed for risk assessment as adjuncts to diagnostic classification (e.g., Fragoso et al. J Am Geriatr Soc 2008, 56:1014-1020). Pertinent references: Guideline #1 in Qaseem et al., strong recommendation, moderate-quality evidence; GOLD, 2008 and the 2005 American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society Task Force Report, standards for the diagnosis and management of patients with COPD.
Although there are ample guidance to help providers identify and evaluate patients likely to have earlier stage COPD, few are referred to spirometric testing. Subsequent spirometry provides a good working yield of true positives, which is frequently superior to pre-test probabilities of other, more complex and expensive medical tests commonly ordered for other conditions (colonoscopy,lung cancer), why is it so much more difficult to provide spirometry? COPD will remain undertreated as long as it remains underdiagnosed.

Pulmonary rehabilitation is a critical component in the treatment of COPD patients but several barriers persist that have resulted in very limited access to rehab, low referral rates for eligible patients and limited standardization of best practices within the rehab facilities that do exist. Large, definitive studies accounting for patient subgroups, site characteristics and program components can generate the level of evidence needed to expand access, educate providers and improve referral systems and create quality programs. This level of evidence is necessary to change policy to properly value the role of pulmonary rehabilitation and to convince integrated health systems in a value based market that pulmonary rehabilitation is beyond a doubt, a requirement of providing quality COPD care.