Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Fibrotic interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a group of disorders characterized by inflammation and scarring of the lungs that lead to breathing failure. Many patients with fibrotic ILD have symptoms outside of their lungs, such as depression, anxiety, poor sleep, and pain. But, it is not clear how these issues affect patients' daily physical activity. To address this gap in knowledge, we examined the impact of depression, anxiety, poor sleep, and pain on daily physical activity of 79 patients with fibrotic ILD. Patients completed standardized questionnaires about the four symptoms and wore an activity monitor on their wrist for seven days to track their step count. The average daily step count of our patients was 14,257. We found 19% of our patients to have borderline or abnormal depression and anxiety scores and 66% with poor sleep quality. Patients also reported mild pain, with an average score of 1.9 on a ten-point scale. Out of the four symptoms, we found higher depression scores to be the most important factor associated with reduced daily physical activity in patients with fibrotic ILD. Daily step counts for patients with abnormal or borderline depression scores were significantly lower than the daily step counts for patients with normal depression scores (11,759 vs. 14,843). In conclusion, depression is a key factor that can lower activity levels of patients with fibrotic ILD. A more comprehensive patient care that addresses depression through therapies like pulmonary rehabilitation may have benefits in improving patients' quality of life.