Jack Cramm Auditorium Faculty of Education Building 3700 McTavish Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 1Y2

Dr. Andrew Binks (President, Dyspnea Society) and Dr. Dennis Jensen (Chair, Dyspnea 2024 Organizing Committee)

Managing COPD - To improve quality of life Mr. Russell Winwood , Brisbane, Australia In this presentation, Russell (aka the COPD Athlete ) will speak about the strategies he implements as a person with COPD to manage breathlessness (including exercise), and his perspective on what he thinks is important for healthcare and research going forward in the field of breathlessness science. Biosketch : Russell Winwood is a 56-year-old from Brisbane, Australia who was diagnosed with severe COPD in 2011. Russell decided early on in the diagnosis that his disease would not define his life or how he lived it. In the last 11 years, Russell has completed 3 ironman events, multiple marathons, half marathons and fundraised over $100,000. Since 2018, Russell has had to learn to run with an oxygen backpack so he can continue to do what he loves. His main focus is on maintaining a good quality of life through exercise and nutrition. In 2021, Russell had his case study published in Frontiers in Medicine . Russell's passions are to raise awareness for COPD and to share his experiences to help other people with lung health conditions improve their quality of life.

Dr. Hayley Lewthwaite, University of Newcastle, Australia; Co-Chair, Dyspnea 2024 Organizing Committee Biosketch : Dr Hayley Lewthwaite PhD is an accredited exercise physiologist and postdoctoral research fellow with the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Centre of Research Excellence in Treatable Traits. Hayley completed her PhD in 2018 at the University of South Australia where she explored physical activity, sedentary and sleep behaviours in people with chronic lung disease — relationships with health outcomes and strategies to optimise behaviours. Following completion of her PhD, Hayley moved to Canada for a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University. Hayley’s research focuses on exploring pathological mechanisms underlying exertional breathlessness, with the aim of optimising symptom assessment and management. In particular, Hayley looks to find novel approaches to manage activity-related breathlessness and enable people who live with persistent breathlessness to be more active in their day-to-day life.

Pathophysiological Mechanisms of Exertional Dyspnea in People with Cardiopulmonary Disease - Recent Advances Dr. J Alberto Neder , Queen's University, Canada Biosketch: Dr. J Alberto Neder is a respirologist, physician scientist, and Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Queen’s University. He has a broad interest in the field of clinical respiratory physiology. Dr. Neder has been a senior author in over 300 peer-reviewed papers and has authored many book chapters on respiratory and exercise physiology, pulmonary rehabilitation, and integrated care in chronic respiratory diseases. Dr. Neder runs a busy clinical service focused on COPD, is the Medical Director of Hotel Dieu Hospital’s Pulmonary Function Tests Laboratory and is the Director of Providence Care Hospital’s Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program. Dr. Neder is Principal investigator of the Respiratory Investigation Unit at Queen’s University, and his clinical and teaching interests include COPD, COPD-heart failure overlap, cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation, pulmonary hypertension & pulmonary vascular disease, advanced lung function and cardiopulmonary exercise testing.

Neural gating of respiratory sensations - Relationships to perception and negative affect Valentina Jelinčić, PhD candidate , Research group Health Psychology, KU Leuven Biosketch : Valentina Jelinčić studied psychology and neuroscience in Croatia and Germany, and is currently a PhD researcher in the Health Psychology research group at KU Leuven, Belgium (set to defend in June 2024). At Dyspnea 2024, Valentina will share the findings from her doctoral project on neural gating, i.e. cortical suppression of redundant stimuli. Her project focused on the relationship of neural gating to perception and negative affect in two sensory domains (respiratory and tactile). Valentina has for several years nurtured a strong interest in how neural activity interacts with (disordered) breathing, and has written a narrative review on this topic in 2021. She aims to continue her investigation into the interactions of breathing and cognition in her postdoctoral project.

Mechanistic insights in dyspnoea from neurological patients and non-invasive brain stimulation - A nod to neuromodulation Dr. Tom Chapman . Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom Biosketch : Dr. Tom Chapman PhD is a graduate of Medical Science (BMedSci) at Oxford Brookes University and has recently completed his PhD involving interdisciplinary collaboration between cardiorespiratory physiologists, neurosurgeons and cognitive psychologists. In Montreal, Tom will bring together the proposed mechanisms of dyspnoea modulation across cortical and subcortical sites derived from his work on neurosurgical patients as well as with non-invasive brain stimulation. Tom's postdoctoral research aims to bridge mechanistic understanding of cerebral sites involved in the perception of dyspnoea with the development of using non-invasive neuromodulation for its relief.

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Abnormal Exertional Breathlessness - Performance and Use of Normative Reference Equations Dr. Magnus Ekström , Lund University, Sweden Biosketch: Dr. Ekström, MD, PhD, is senior consultant, Associate Professor, and Senior Lecturer in palliative respiratory medicine at Lund University, Sweden. He is the head of the Swedish National Registry for Respiratory Failure (Swedevox). His main research focus is breathlessness mechanisms, assessment and treatment. He also leads research in oxygen therapy and treatment in patients with chronic respiratory failure. He is involved in multiple multicenter studies and international research collaborations across a range of study types, including mechanistic, epidemiological and registry-based studies, clinical cohort studies, meta-analyses, and randomized controlled trials.

Implications and Considerations When Deploying Clinically-Developed Artificial Intelligence for the Evaluation of Exertional Dyspnea Abed Hijleh . Queen's University, Canada Biosketch : Abed is a third-year undergraduate student at Queen's University, specializing in Kinesiology. With a long-time passion for technology and software, Abed has developed an expertise in programming with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI). His extensive experience in software technologies has sparked an interest in its clinical applications. Abed's research journey began in Neuromechanics, studying gait mechanics and motor control. His recent shift to the respiratory research domain under the guidance of Dr. Alberto Neder has led him to the development of innovative software for Cardiopulmonary Exercise Test interpretation. This software is designed to enhance the assessment of dyspnea, thereby integrating bioinformatics and AI into respiratory studies to offer novel insights into this challenging area.

Insights Gained - Understanding Dyspnea Measurements in Oncology Patients Across 13 Years of Research Joosun Shin, PhD, RN , Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School, USA Biosketch : Dr. Joosun Shin PhD RN is an oncology nurse-postdoctoral research fellow in the Phyllis F. Cantor Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the medical oncology department at Harvard Medical School, as well as a visiting scholar at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Shin's research is focused on a comprehensive evaluation of dyspnea in patients with cancer and the identification of modifiable risk factors that can be the target of interventions for patients with the highest symptom burden. In addition, a critical component of Dr. Shin's research is an exploration of the molecular mechanisms that underlie dyspnea in patients with cancer.

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Dr. Dennis Jensen

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