Helping People Cope With COPD
By Valerie Chang, JD, Executive Director, COPD Coalition
Try the coffee stirrer challenge: Breathe through a coffee stirrer, pinch your nose and run up several fights of stairs. This is how it feels to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Intended to increase awareness of this growing global problem, November is COPD month, and World COPD Day is Nov. 19. COPD is an umbrella term for emphysema, chronic bronchitis and chronic asthma. In Hawaii, 46,015 adults have been diagnosed with COPD, and an equal number are undiagnosed. It costs more than $55 million per year in Hawaii for COPD hospitalizations and emergency visits. It is the third leading cause of death and second leading cause of disability in the U.S. About five of six people with COPD acquired it from smoking cigarettes; the others from secondhand smoke, toxic work environments or genetic causes.
