World Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Day is a global struggle to raise people’s belief in COPD and help for better care for inmates. Million Indians die each year due to this disease. A significant problem for this is a lack of recognition and underdiagnosis of the disease.
Over the years, the incidence of COPD has grown a lot in the country. Some people mistake breathlessness and coughing as a sign of old age. However, growing breathlessness is a red flag for COPD. The term COPD is a term to describe lung diseases and it can develop for years in the human body without noticeable shortness of breath. The condition is delineated by a restraint of airflow into and out of the lungs that makes breathing painful.
A day of awareness
COPD is a group of diseases essentially involving chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Chronic bronchitis befalls when your airways become inflamed. It drives a raise in mucus production in the lungs which exhibits cough, wheezing, and muscle pain. Emphysema, on the other hand, includes permanent damage and disfiguration of the air welts in the lungs. As a consequence, patients tend to feel breathless more frequently. Depletion of oxygen in the body usually turns their fingernails color blue.
The COPD burden
This is currently the 4th main cause of death in the world. Specialists say that within a decade it could be the 3rd most prominent cause of death worldwide.
There are most limited three causes why diagnosing this ailment is hard. One, most people believe that brevity of breath is the only primary symptom of COPD. Secondly, they sometimes mix it with other lung diseases like asthma. And third, those who do have some basic knowledge about COPD think that this disease is restricted to smokers.
Of course, there are different problems too. Not all specialists use the right diagnostic tools for COPD. As a consequence, COPD is majorly under-diagnosed. This is notably true of rural areas. A study explicated that they found twice as many COPD cases in rural India when they used spirometry for diagnosis.
A spirometry test is a mere procedure that measures your lung capacity by checking the amount of air you can blow out in a single breath. If you have COPD, you won’t be capable to blow out as much air as you can inhale.
What Do People Do?
Several health care organizations, educators, government agencies, and patient groups worldwide operate together to improve World COPD Day.
Actions comprise:
~ Educative sessions for patients and the general public.
~ COPD Care Days concerning scheduled meetings and counseling concourses.
~ Openings for COPD education or health clinics.
~ Free pulmonary function tests.
~ Outpatient education sessions on quitting smoking.
~ Talk show radio programs on dealing with COPD.
~ Tours that physicians prepare to bring COPD education and supervision in distant areas.
The Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) operates with organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), which is the United Nations focusing and regulating authority for health, to support World COPD Day.
As the popular saying goes, knowledge is power. Wellness days like World COPD Day are the best souvenirs of how we can stay healthy, by staying up to date.