Rhonchi

I had not heard of World COPD Day, but here it is: World COPD Day.

Also, This is a test post to see if I can post using Windows Live Writer.

Women with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) fare worse than men
Women with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) fare worse than men both in terms of the severity of their disease and their quality of life. These differences may play a role in the increased death rate seen among female patients with COPD, said researcher Claudia Cote, M.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

The researchers studied 85 women, and compared them with 95 men who had the same levels of COPD severity according to guidelines of the Global Initiative for Chronic Lung Disease (GOLD). They found that female patients were significantly younger than male patients with the same severity of disease. The women had lower lung function, more trouble breathing, and reported a worse quality of life. The women also received a worse score on the BODE index, which looks at lung function, nutritional status, symptoms and exercise capacity in order to measure a COPD patient’s disease severity and predicted survival.

Doctors Must Help COPD Patients Quit Smoking – Forbes.com
Despite the risks, more than 36 percent of patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)are still smoking, a new study says.

“It doesn’t look like a good part of the [COPD] population is getting the information it needs from health-care providers,” lead researcher Jeannine Schiller, a statistician with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a prepared statement.

COPD includes chronic lung diseases like emphysema and bronchitis, and affects more than 13.5 million Americans. Symptoms include shortness of breath, coughing and productive cough. The biggest risk factor for COPD is smoking, and it will cause flare-ups and the disease to worsen.

Almost 23 percent of the smokers in the study with COPD said that their doctor did not talk to them about quitting smoking within the last year, or offer them suggestions to help them quit.

Centre Daily Times | 02/13/2006 | Pulmonary rehab brings hope to sufferers of lung disease
Ever increasing de-conditioning results in more shortness of breath, and so the vicious cycle continues. A comprehensive pulmonary rehabilitation program provides an educational forum about COPD, as well as supervised exercise under the watchful eye of a respiratory therapist and psychosocial support. This intervention has been shown to reduce the sense of breathlessness described by COPD patients, thus allowing them to increase their activity level.

Pulmonary rehabilitation has been shown to reduce the number of hospitalizations associated with exacerbation. It probably does not prolong the lives of patients with COPD, but it certainly improves their quality of life.

Help for Seniors on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Posted on Web

The Website produced by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide useful information on health specifically for seniors citizens continues to increase its content. Today, NIHSeniorHealth.gov adds information about the diagnosis and treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.

Here’s the page: http://nihseniorhealth.gov/copd/toc.html

I also like the ability to change the text size and contrast of the page, and also to print all or parts of the articles easily. Definitely a Section 508 accessible site!