The allocation of attention plays an important role in treatment. During exacerbations of their conditions, patients with lung disorders are often told to focus on their breathing. Laboratory evidence has shown that interoceptive self-awareness does decrease the strength of perceived dyspnea [41], but that this
ITF 2357 positive cognitive manipulation is susceptible to interruptions by negative emotions, [41]. This makes these maneuvers more challenging for dyspnea patients with comorbid depression and/or anxiety disorders. In apparent contradiction to the positive effects of interoceptive self-awareness, external distraction has been shown to alleviate the unpleasantness of dyspnea during exercise [42] and could therefore be used to improve exercise performance. Distraction from pain was shown to decrease
brain activity in areas commonly implicated in the processing of pain intensity, whilst increasing activity in the frontal cortex and the cingulate cortex [43]. Similar mechanisms could be employed during distraction from dyspnea. Understanding the important role of attention in the modulation of dyspnea could lead to relatively straight-forward and cost-effective interventions that may help relieve dyspnea.
