For many people fighting chronic lung diseases like COPD, the hardest battles are not the physical ones, but the ones that happen inside the mind. Coping with a disease that disrupts your breathing—a basic life function—is far from easy, and it takes a major mental toll on many people with the disease.

Though COPD is usually thought of as a disease that affects the physical body first and foremost, it's known to come with a long list of psychological side-effects and risks. These include clinically-recognized disorders like anxiety and depression as well as other forms of mental and emotional distress that are a bit more difficult to quantify and define.

Many people with COPD find themselves consumed with worry, for instance, or over-focusing on the difficulties and losses in their lives. While this is a common, natural reaction shared by many people with chronic diseases, it's not a healthy, happy, or sustainable way to go through life long term.

Luckily, there are many healthy, effective tools for coping with COPD and the sometimes overwhelming emotional challenges of living with the disease. In this post, we're going to focus on one method in particular: gratitude exercises, which are proven to help improve happiness and emotional well-being.

Though little-known and under-appreciated, gratitude exercises are backed by a great deal of research that supports the idea that gratitude—when practiced correctly and consistently—can improve a variety of different aspects of mental health. In particular, gratitude exercises can make it easier to cope with misfortune and help you find more contentment and appreciation in life in spite of your COPD.

Why Gratitude?

At first glance, gratitude practice might sound like a strange solution for people who struggle to cope with the mental and physical strain of COPD. We understand how it might sound ironic—or even condescending—to suggest that people should feel grateful while dealing with a debilitating, chronic disease.

Certainly, we're not saying the people with COPD should be grateful for their disease, nor that people with COPD should feel any obligation to be grateful at all. However, gratitude is a recognized psychological intervention, and it's something that anyone can practice by doing simple exercises at home.

Practicing gratitude also doesn't mean you're supposed to feel grateful all the time. It's not meant to invalidate your feelings, replace negative emotions, or even drown out unpleasant thoughts. Instead, gratitude practice is meant to help you access more positive emotions in addition to the negative ones, and to help you see the good things even when the bad things are hard to see past.

According to one blogger who writes about their experiences with chronic illness, "It is not easy to feel thankful when we are chronically ill; in fact, sometimes we feel cheated out of life." However, she explains, that's all the more reason to practice gratitude, which, like any skill, can be honed and improved over time.

Practicing gratitude helps you look at the world through a different lens—one that helps you see beyond your struggles and recognize the good things in your life. In this way, gratitude practice helps you build a more positive outlook on life in general, which can help you keep hope and happiness alive no matter how bad things might seem.

What Does Gratitude Have to Do With Mental Health?

Research on gratitude shows that it has a variety of mental health benefits, and many people with COPD report finding comfort and relief in gratitude. Of course, that doesn't mean gratitude practice works for everyone, but it does suggest it's a worthwhile option for people who struggle with mental and emotional health because of their COPD.

Gratitude is an important concept in the field of positive psychology, a sub-set of psychological research that focuses on identifying traits and behaviors that support positive mental well-being. This area of psychology is all about strengthening positive traits (reinforcing the things that make people happy) rather than fixing negative traits (correcting the things that make people unhappy).

In the scope of positive psychology, the purpose of gratitude is not to treat any specific mental problem or disorder, but to help people cultivate habits and perspectives that promote better general mental health. Of course, we're not suggesting that gratitude practice is a substitute for mental health treatment, or that gratitude alone is enough to overcome the (often) enormous burden of COPD-related emotional distress.

While gratitude can be a helpful tool for those struggling with mental problems, it's not enough to treat serious emotional problems or mental illnesses on its own. If you suffer from a mental illness like anxiety or depression, or you are unable to cope with the mental burden of COPD on your own, you should first seek proper treatment from a trained mental health professional.

If you'd like to learn more about mental health treatment for COPD or other coping methods to try, check out the following guides from our respiratory resource center:

• Coping with COPD
• Mental health treatment options for people with COPD
• Mind-body exercises for COPD

What Does it Mean to Practice Gratitude?

We often think of gratitude as something we show to others, but gratitude is also something you can practice all by—and for—yourself. That's what this guide is all about: how gratitude as a personal practice can help you feel better and cope better with the mental difficulties that often come with COPD.

In the simplest sense, gratitude practice is simply the act recognizing positive things in your life. It's about seeing the good things through the bad and taking time to actively look for—and spend some time thinking about—things in your life that you can be thankful for.

Personal gratitude practice is not about expressing thanks to others; it's about using gratitude as a personal tool to improve your mental well-being.

More specifically, however, “gratitude practice” can mean doing structured gratitude exercises that help you “practice” gratitude in a more deliberate, goal-oriented way. These gratitude exercises (also known as “gratitude interventions”) are designed to help you harness the benefits of gratitude to improve your psychological health.

Gratitude exercises come in many shapes and forms, including written activities (such as gratitude journaling) and more abstract thought-based techniques (such as gratitude meditation) We'll show you how to practice these and other effective gratitude exercises a bit later in this guide.

Of course, it's possible to practice gratitude on your own without a strategy; however, studies suggest that you're likely to get more from your gratitude practice if you do it in a structured way. Gratitude exercises provide a framework to help you practice gratitude consistently and put the practice to work in your life.

As the authors of one study put it (PDF link), “relatively simple intentional changes in one’s thoughts and behaviors can precipitate meaningful increases in happiness.” That's what gratitude practice is all about: improving your mental well-being by taking deliberate actions to recognize and reflect on the things you have to feel thankful for.

How to Find Gratitude Under the Shadow of Chronic Disease

So far we've discussed the meaning of personal gratitude and what gratitude exercises are, but we haven't yet discussed what it really means to feel grateful, or what kinds of things you should feel thankful for when yo have COPD. These are personal questions that form the core of gratitude practice, and the answers depend on your depend on your experiences, your circumstances, and what you value in life.

Unfortunately, many people with COPD and other chronic diseases have faced so much misfortune that that they lose touch with what it's like to grateful. When your life is full of health problems and hardship, it can even feel impossible to find anything that you could feel thankful for.

However, times like these are often when you need the gratitude the most. Even if it seems like you don't have much to appreciate, doing gratitude exercises can help you fine-tune your gratitude senses and teach yourself how to recognize the good things, both big and small.

You'll likely be surprised at all the positive things you can find when you're actively looking for them instead of focusing on the problems and hardships in your life. With practice, you can learn to find joy and contentment in even the most mundane and unexpected places, like the pleasure of taking your first sip of morning coffee or the satisfaction of practicing self-care.

This is especially important for people with COPD, many of whom live with constant reminders of their disease and what their body can't do. Gratitude practice can teach you to love and appreciate your body more by helping you acknowledge all of the amazing, helpful things that your body can do.

That's what gratitude practice is all about—getting in the habit of looking out for the good things no matter how grim and hopeless your circumstances might seem. Sometimes it just takes some time to build up your gratitude muscle before you can break outside the box of negative thinking and explore the full positive potential in your life.

Just know that there is no right or wrong way to feel personal gratitude, and there's no right or wrong thing to feel grateful for. What matters most is what you think is worthy of gratitude, and how you can put those feelings of gratitude to work in your life.

The Benefits of Gratitude for People with COPD

The psychological sciences have long recognized the potential of gratitude to improve mental well-being, and it's been the topic of a great deal of studies over the years. In fact, there's a wide body of academic research on gratitude that spans the fields of positive psychology, mental health treatment, and quality-of-life improvements for people with chronic diseases.

Before we go on, however, it's important to clarify that there's an important distinction between looking at the benefits of gratitude (as an existing feeling or trait) versus the benefits of gratitude interventions (exercises that focus on gratitude and appreciation). Both are important for understanding how gratitude effects well-being, but they tell very different stories about what the benefits of gratitude mean.

Studies on the benefits of gratitude itself essentially describe the differences between people with different gratitude tendencies; they compare the well-being of people who have more gratitude to the well-being of people who have less. However, studies on the benefits of gratitude interventions actually measure how people's well-being changes in response to gratitude exercises, and how gratitude can be used to increase people's well-being.

In other words, the benefits of gratitude alone may only apply to those who are already grateful people; they don't tell us much—if anything—about what gratitude exercises can do. The benefits of gratitude exercises, however, can apply to anyone who completes a gratitude intervention, regardless of natural gratitude tendencies or baseline gratitude levels.

It's also important to note that, in general, the size of gratitude benefits tends to be modest; however, that doesn't mean that gratitude can't still have a significant positive effect on people's lives. Gratitude isn't exactly a game-changer, but it is an effective tool for building healthier mental habits and introducing more positive feelings and perspectives into your life.

Improved Emotional and General Well-being

Two things that research consistently finds about gratitude is that it tends to foster positive emotions and that people who feel more gratitude tend to have better mental health. Research also shows that gratitude exercises are associated with a variety of other benefits related to personal well-being.

Numerous studies, for example, have found that people who participate in simple, structured gratitude exercises—such as writing down what they're thankful for every day—tend to experience more positive emotions and fewer negative emotions than people who don't. Studies also show that gratitude interventions can increase people's general happiness and satisfaction with their lives.

One large meta-review that analyzed 38 high-quality gratitude studies offers a great summary of the effects of gratitude interventions, including how well they work and what their benefits are. The study identifies nearly a dozen specific benefits of gratitude practices, including:

• Increased gratitude
• Increased happiness
• More positive feelings
• Fewer negative feelings
• Reduced depression
• Increased well-being
• Increased life satisfaction
• Increased optimism
• Increased relationship quality

The meta-review also confirms that these positive effects aren't just temporary; in fact, they seem to be just as strong when measured at 6 months after the gratitude intervention as when they're measured just two weeks after the exercise is done. One study on older adults, for example, found that a two-week gratitude intervention resulted in improved well-being that persisted for at least 30 days.

This emotional boost is is something that many people with COPD could benefit from, particularly those who tend to feel hopeless or pessimistic about their condition. By helping you learn how to think and feel more positively, gratitude practice can help you break free from the cycle of negativity and despair that so often plagues people living with chronic diseases.

Increased Resilience

Research shows that gratitude is an effective tool for coping with hardship, including the hardship of living with chronic illness. One study, for example, found that feelings of gratitude are associated with a reduced risk of depression in people with chronic disease.

This is likely due to the the fact that gratitude fosters positive feelings, and positive feelings make it easier to cope when things get tough. This is part of the “broaden and build” model in psychology, which suggests that experiencing positive emotions creates a kind of “reserve” of positive feelings that you can use to help yourself feel better in times of need (PDF link).

In other words, doing activities (like gratitude exercises) that generate positive emotions now can make you more resilient to hardships in the future. This is particularly helpful for people with COPD and other chronic diseases whose lives are often filled with struggles big and small, both in the context of daily living (e.g. chronic discomfort and gradual physical decline) and in the context of managing their disease (e.g. hospitalizations and unpleasant treatments like oxygen therapy).

Gratitude exercises can help you build up the mental fortitude you need to cope with these struggles and get the most out of life. The stronger your mental health and skills in positive thinking, the better you'll be able to deal with whatever troubles that life (and COPD) throws your way.

Improved Relationships

Another benefit of gratitude that's worth mentioning is improved relationships. Several studies have shown that gratitude interventions can improve relationship quality and satisfaction, in part helping you appreciate your bonds with other people more.

This is an important benefit for people with COPD, who often feel isolated at a time when they need other people the most. Who knows? Practicing gratitude could help bring you closer to your loved ones or help you discover new sources of love and support that you didn't even know you had before.

Improved Sleep

A number of studies have investigated the impact of gratitude on physical health measures like blood pressure or sleep quality, but results so far are inconclusive at best. Unfortunately, there is very little research in this area, since most studies (understandably) focus on the mental health benefits of gratitude rather than physical health.

However, several studies suggest that gratitude interventions can improve sleep quality. This makes sense, since we know that gratitude can have a variety of psychological benefits, and research shows that sleep quality is closely connected to psychological health.

Other studies suggest that gratitude interventions might be able to improve other physical factors such as blood pressure, asthma control, or eating behaviors. However, based on the evidence found so far, many researchers doubt that these benefits are substantial, if they exist at all.

Improved Quality of Life for People with COPD

Unfortunately, very few studies have looked at the implications of gratitude and gratitude interventions for COPD patients specifically. Those that have, however, have come up with similar results to those found in other gratitude studies.

One study, for example, found that people with COPD who are predisposed to feel gratitude tend to have a better quality of life than those who don't share that trait. Researchers from one study specifically recommended gratitude exercises as a means for COPD patients to "work toward more flexible, positive thinking through the use of concrete tools."

This suggests that gratitude is not only beneficial for people with chronic diseases, but that gratitude exercises can be an effective tool for coping with COPD specifically. This is echoed in the personal testimonies of COPD patients (on sites like copd.net) who have found and hope and healing through gratitude.

To sum it all up, gratitude helps you appreciate what you have and feel more satisfied with your life and relationships, even when things are difficult because of your COPD. Doing activities that foster gratitude and other positive emotions can also also make you more resilient to adversity, making it easier to cope with health-related misfortunes such as hospitalization or COPD-related physical decline.

Potential Drawbacks of Gratitude Practice

While gratitude can be a helpful tool for good, it can sometimes backfire if used in the wrong way. For example, focusing on too much on gratitude—or letting it become a rigid way of thinking—can undermine other valid thoughts and emotions you have.

You might start to think “I shouldn't think these negative thoughts, I should feel grateful!” which can just make you feel guilty for feeling bad. That's why gratitude isn't supposed to be used to replace negative feelings, but rather to add more positive feelings and thoughts into your life.

You shouldn't ever feel pressured to feel grateful; it's okay to feel how you feel, even if you feel bad, and even if you have lots of things to be grateful for. In fact, it's important to let yourself experience unpleasant emotions without judgment or shame, and to make peace with your negative feelings rather than wishing them away.

According to the psychotherapist Katie Willard Virant, "to be thankful for what one possesses does not mean that one cannot simultaneously feel grief for what one has lost.” She explains how her experiences have taught her that gratitude does not necessarily put a stop to mourning, but rather “[places] it into a context that [makes] it more bearable.”

Another thing you should avoid during gratitude practice is comparing yourself to other people, which often leads to unnecessary judgment and guilt. For example, you might end up thinking, “Some people have illnesses that are worse than mine, so I shouldn't feel so depressed about having COPD!”

It's important to remember that your feelings—whatever they are—are valid, no matter whether or not other people have it better or worse than you. In fact, there's no need to pass any judgment at all about what you “should” or “shouldn't” feel grateful for. Whatever you can find to appreciate within yourself and your own circumstances is worthwhile, no matter what other people's circumstances might be.

As you practice gratitude, it's important to check in every once in awhile to make sure it's helping and working for you. Gratitude practice isn't for everyone, and it's only worth doing if it actually helps you feel better, not worse.

How to Practice Gratitude

Now that we've discussed the merits and reasoning behind using gratitude as a coping method for COPD, let's take a closer look at some different techniques for practicing gratitude. In the following sections, we'll introduce you to several simple gratitude exercises along with some helpful tips for how to get started on your own.

Like most types of mental health and coping techniques, everyone's experience is different, and different methods tend to work for different people. So, if you're new to gratitude practice (and even if you're not), you might need to try out more than one method before it sticks.

Gratitude works best when you practice it frequently; ideally, you should try to do a gratitude exercise every day or at least a few times per week. You might find it easier to make it a habit if you integrate the exercises into an existing daily routine, such as your usual self-care regimen or bedtime preparations.

Also keep in mind that none of these practices are set in stone; feel free to tweak, adjust, and combine these exercises—and any others you come up with—however you see fit. What's important is to find a technique that feels meaningful and resonates with you.

Daily Gratitude Reflections

Doing daily gratitude reflections is probably the easiest way to practice gratitude: all you have to do is spend a few minutes at the end of every day to think back on good experiences and the things you have to appreciate. It's a great place to start if you're new to gratitude practice since it's quick, simple, and doesn't take any special skills or supplies.

The goal of these reflections is to put yourself in a mindset of positivity and gratitude long enough to come up with at least a few specific things that you feel thankful for. Those things can be just about anything: something good that happened to you, something that's made you happy recently, or just about anything positive you've might have noticed or experienced throughout the day.

You might find these gratitude reflections more difficult some days than others, such as when you feel sick or things just aren't going your way. However, it gets easier to access feelings of gratitude—even on the bad days—over time as you practice putting yourself in the mindset of actively seeking out the good things in your life.

Gratitude Journaling

Gratitude journaling is one of the most common and well-studied methods for practicing gratitude. It's basically just like gratitude reflection but with one extra step: you have to write down the things you are thankful for, or at least write down your thoughts about good things you've noticed or experienced throughout the day.

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The need for a healthy diet is something that every person shares, young and old, sick and healthy, and everything in between. However, the importance of good nutrition grows as we get older, and it becomes critical for many people living with chronic diseases like COPD.

People with COPD need to be particularly careful to get enough calories and nutrients to support their lungs and other body processes that are affected by the disease. COPD also makes you prone to a variety of diet-related problems, including under-nutrition, weight gain, and weight loss.

However, health and nutrition can get complicated, and sticking to a healthy diet isn't an easy thing to do. If you're like many people, the idea of putting together a healthy, well-balanced meal might feel intimidating, or you might not even quite know where to begin.

That's why we've put together this guide to help people with COPD plan healthy meals and get all the nutrition they need. In this post, we explain not only what a healthy COPD diet looks like, but we also show you how to put together healthy meals on the fly at home.

We also present a variety of practical meal ideas and examples of healthy and versatile dishes you can prepare on your own and modify as you please. These, along with the additional guides and helpful resources linked throughout this guide, should give you everything you need to get started eating a healthier diet that improves—rather than exacerbates—your COPD.

The Cornerstones of Good Nutrition for COPD

Before we start looking at some specific COPD-healthy dishes and meal plans, it's important to have a general grasp of what a healthy diet for someone with COPD looks like. That doesn't mean you have to be a diet guru, but you should know some general principles of nutrition and how to put together a balanced meal.

You should also be aware of the different ways that your diet and eating habits can affect your COPD and worsen symptoms like shortness of breath. We'll address these and a variety of other important dietary considerations in the sections below before we dive into our list of healthy meal examples and some practical diet recommendations for people with COPD.

Balance Your Food Groups (Protein, Fat, & Carbs)

If you look up nutritional guidelines—which you can find online from a variety of government and health organizations—they contain a list of all the vital components that make up a healthy diet. They tell you everything from what categories of food to eat, down to the exact amount of vitamins and minerals you should take in on a daily basis.

Because this information is readily available from lots of great sources, we're not going to go into them in great detail here. However, we do want to highlight some of the most important principles you need to know in order to learn how to create balanced, nutritious meals.

Macronutrient Proportions

First, you should strive for a healthy balance of the three major macronutrients in your diet: proteins, fats, and carbohydrates (also known as carbs). Health experts recommend spreading out your daily calories between these nutrient groups, aiming for the following (approximate) percentages:

• About 20% of your diet should come from protein; high-protein foods include meats, seafood, eggs, beans, peas, nuts, and soy.
• About 30% of your diet should come from fat; this includes fats found naturally in foods like dairy, meat, eggs, and nuts, and also added fats like butter and vegetable oils.
• About 50% of your diet should come from carbs, which are found in a variety of foods including fruits, vegetables, dairy, and grains—however, people with COPD may benefit from a diet with fewer carbs (we discuss this in more detail the next section just below)

Healthy Sources of Nutrients

Second, you should be familiar with which foods from each of these nutrients groups are more or less healthy to eat. Here are a few examples of some healthy vs unhealthy sources of protein, fat, and carbs:

• Whole grain carbohydrates (e.g. whole grain breads and pastas) are healthier than simple, refined grains (e.g. white pastas and breads).
• Lean proteins (e.g. chicken and fish) and unprocessed meats are generally healthier than fatty proteins (e.g. beef and lamb) and processed meats (e.g. sausage, deli meat, and other cured meats).
• Unsaturated fats (e.g. oils and other fats that are liquid at room temperature) are generally healthier for you and your heart than saturated fats (e.g. butter, lard, and other fats that are solid at room temperature).

Major Food Groups and Serving Sizes

Third, you should know what the basic, top-level food groups are and how many portions of each you should eat each day. Keep in mind that what counts as a single portion varies among different types of food within the group.

You can learn more about correct serving sizes on choosemyplate.gov and in the table just below.

Here's an overview of what US guidelines for daily servings say:

As you plan your meals and snacks, make it your goal to choose foods that help you fulfill the daily requirements for each food group. You don't have to be perfect, either; approximating your portions and and getting as close as possible to these targets is a perfectly healthy goal.

Foods and Ingredients to Avoid

Finally, you should know what kinds of foods are unhealthy, or unhealthy in large amounts, and do your best to limit them in your diet. These include things like excess sodium, too many simple carbs, added oils, added sugar, and trans-fats.

Foods and Ingredients to Avoid:

• Fried foods
• Heavily processed foods
• Sugary drinks
• Foods high in salt
• Foods high in sugar and simple carbohydrates
• Foods high in saturated fats
• All sources of trans fats
• Foods with added oils and fats
• Too much caffeine
• Too much alcohol

Limit Carbohydrates for Better Breathing

Most people with COPD don't need to follow a special diet, and should be perfectly healthy following the general nutritional guidelines set by the USDA. However, there is one notable exception: some people with COPD may benefit from a diet with fewer carbohydrates.

Because of the nature of how the body processes carbohydrates, eating carbs causes your body to produce more carbon dioxide than when you eat proteins or fats. Because carbon dioxide is a waste product that has to be processed by the lungs, high-carb foods put extra strain on your respiratory system, forcing your lungs to work harder and use up more energy.

If you have COPD, this translates to increased shortness breath, since your damaged lungs are already struggling to process oxygen and carbon dioxide fast enough to meet your body's needs. In fact, studies show that relatively small changes in carbohydrate consumption can have significant effects on COPD symptoms, with more carbs causing notable increases in breathlessness and reduced exercise tolerance.

Because of this, a low-carbohydrate diet can be beneficial for people with COPD, improving their lungs' efficiency and reducing shortness of breath. That means reducing your intake of high-carbohydrate foods (such as grains, beans, and carb-heavy fruits and veggies), and replacing them with low-carb alternatives and more healthy proteins and fats.

You'll find more tips for reducing carbs later on in this guide, both in our sample meal ideas and in our section on practical diet & cooking tips.

Aim for Variety

Although daily diet recommendations can get very specific, that doesn't mean you need to go overboard tracking every little thing, nor do you need to stress about meeting the exact targets every single day. Unless you have specific instructions from a doctor or dietitian, getting the right balance of nutrients on average is perfectly acceptable, and will prevent the vast majority of nutrient deficiencies.

In fact, most people are able to get a sufficient amount (PDF link) of vitamins and nutrients without tracking their diet too closely. That's because, in general, most people eat a wide enough variety of foods to supply their bodies with everything they need.

Of course, this laissez-faire approach won't work if your diet is too unbalanced. If you're not careful, a diet that's too heavy in one thing or too light in another can lead to nutrient deficiencies, which can be particularly dangerous for people with COPD.

An easy way to prevent this, however, is to always strive for variety in your diet. That means not only eating plenty of nutritious foods, but also eating a lot of different kinds of healthy foods with different types of micronutrients, which include vitamins, minerals, and metals like iron and zinc.

It helps to familiarize yourself with the various food sub-categories, which are simply smaller groups within a food group that have similar nutrient profiles. For example, the USDA divides vegetables into 5 separate categories and recommends that you eat a certain amount from each group every week.

Here is a summary of the weekly vegetable sub-group guidelines for adults:

• Dark green vegetables: 1.5 to 2 cups per week
• Red & orange vegetables: 4 to 6 cups per week
• Starchy vegetables: 5 to 6 cups per week
• Beans and Peas: 1 to 2 cups per week
• Other vegetables: 3.5 to 5 cups per week

Knowing these different subgroups makes it easier to ensure that you pick out foods that come from a variety of different groups, instead of just one or two. Maintaining this kind of diversity in your diet will help you ensure that your body gets all the micronutrients it needs to fuel your lungs and keep your body strong.

Here are a couple links to more information about food groups and subgroups:

• A list of all the major food groups and sub-groups with examples of several foods for each category
• A list of common vegetables that belong to each of the 5 major vegetable subgroups

Choose Whole Foods When Possible

When you peruse all the boxed foods, frozen dinners, and other processed foods that make up the large part of grocery store shelves, it's often hard to tell what's good for you and what isn't. Even bold claims like “all natural” or “reduced fat” don't tell you much about a product's actual health, or what those claims even mean in the context of a well-balanced diet.

That's why it's best to cook your own meals at home using whole ingredients whenever possible. That means starting with basic ingredients that are as close as possible to their raw, natural state, such as whole fruits and vegetables, plain beans, and whole grains.

Your ingredients don't need to be “fresh” as long as they're are minimally processed and don't contain added ingredients like salt, oil, or sugar. Frozen fruits and veggies, for example, are just as good for you as the fresh (and more expensive) versions you'll find in the produce section.

Beware of Nutrient Deficiencies Associated with COPD

In ideal conditions, you could get all the nutrients you need just by eating a healthy diet. However, life is often far from ideal, and it's not always possible to get enough vitamins and minerals from the food you eat alone.

This is especially true for people with COPD, who often struggle to get enough nutrients due to both the symptoms and the biological effects of the disease. According to COPD nutrition research, up to 40% of COPD patients are underweight and undernourished.

Certain types of deficiencies are more common in people with COPD than others, including vitamin D, vitamin B12, and iron deficiency. People with disease are also especially prone to osteoporosis, which can be caused by deficiencies in both calcium and vitamin C.

Some of these nutrient deficiencies are directly related to COPD and the medications (such as steroids) used to treat it. Many of them are also associated with certain characteristics that COPD patients tend to have in common, such as age, tobacco smoking history, and other factors related to lifestyle and health.

Research also shows that undernourishment can have particularly severe consequences for people with COPD, including an increased risk of death and hospitalization, more frequent exacerbations. Poor nutrition is also associated with a variety of other negative COPD symptoms, such as reduced lung function, reduced muscle strength, increases shortness of breath, and declines in physical endurance.

Because of this, a large percentage of people with COPD need to take vitamin and/or mineral supplements to satisfy their body's nutritional needs. However, you shouldn't start using supplements without your doctor's permission; when you have a serious chronic condition like COPD, you should never take any new medicines or supplements without consulting your doctor first.

Seeing to your doctor also gives you the opportunity to undergo testing so you can know exactly what—if any—extra nutrients your body needs. Then your doctor can prescribe you the specific supplements you need in proper amounts to correct any deficiencies you currently have or that your doctor believes you are at risk for.

Know Your Calorie Requirements

Many people with COPD struggle with weight loss and undernourishment because of uncomfortable COPD symptoms that make it difficult to eat. However, another reason for malnutrition is simply not eating enough to make up for the extra calories burned through breathing, since lungs affected by COPD use up much more energy to breathe.

This extra energy has to come from somewhere, which is why people with COPD often need more calories and nutrients than the average healthy person. Because of this, many patients—especially those with advanced COPD—need to eat a high-calorie diet to satisfy their body's needs.

That's why, if you have COPD, it's important to talk to your doctor about your diet and to figure out how many daily calories you need to eat. If your doctor puts you on a high-calorie diet, make sure to take it seriously and do your best to meet your calorie target every day.

This can be difficult to do, especially if you're one of the many people with COPD who struggle with pain and breathlessness when you eat. However, there are a variety of strategies that can help, such as eating more frequent, smaller meals spaced out throughout the day (you can find more tips for adjusting to a high-calorie diet toward the end of this guide in the section on practical diet and cooking tips).

Make sure to consult your doctor if you're having trouble managing your diet on your own, and consider consulting a registered dietitian for more specialized help. Dietitians are trained to help people with special health and dietary considerations, and they can work with you to find solutions and put together a realistic diet plan that's tailored to your needs.

Limit Salt

According to US dietary guidelines, you shouldn't eat more than 2,300 milligrams (mg) of salt per day. However, because salt is ubiquitous in so many types of food, most people get far too much of it in their diet.

Unfortunately, too much salt is bad for your health in a variety of ways, increasing your risk for hypertension and heart disease. It's even more dangerous for older adults, and particularly people with COPD, who have a higher risk for age-related heart problems.

A high-salt diet can also cause water retention and bloating, which can worsen common COPD symptoms like breathlessness and chest discomfort. It can also make mealtimes more difficult if you have trouble eating enough food or struggle with shortness of breath when you eat.

Unfortunately, salt can be very difficult to avoid; many popular foods contain excessive amounts of sodium, especially processed foods and snacks. There are also many seemly-innocuous foods that have lots of

Keeping up with healthy habits is not an easy task; for many, it's a lifelong process—and sometimes a lifelong struggle—to stay on track. If you have a chronic health condition like COPD, it can feel downright overwhelming to shoulder the pressure of having to live a healthy lifestyle while also managing your disease.

If you don't have a solid plan and an organizational structure to guide you, it's nearly impossible to handle all those moving pieces on your own. That's why every person with COPD needs some kind of self-management system, and keeping a personal health diary is one of the easiest ways to establish such a system.

A health diary is simply a written or digital system for collecting, tracking, and analyzing all kinds of useful information about your health. Depending on how you use it, it can be a powerful tool for building new, healthier habits and staying on top of your COPD treatment routine.

In this post, we're going to show you how to create your own health diary from scratch, using an assortment of simple tools and health tracking techniques. We'll also show you plenty of ways you can utilize your health diary for practical purposes, such as motivating yourself to stick to an exercise schedule or remembering to take all of your medications on time.

The goal of this guide is to explain everything you need to get a functional health diary started, including how to collect useful data for your journal using a variety of different health measuring tools and data recording methods. We'll even walk you through the process of designing your own health tracking charts, spreadsheets, graphs, and other approaches to organizing and analyzing the information you collect.

What is Health Tracking, and Why Should You Do It?

Health tracking is a general term that refers to recording information about your body or actions you take regarding your health over a period of time. The system you use to record this data can take many forms, but is often referred to as a personal health diary or health journal.

You can make a health diary out of just about any medium that can store information: a blank notebook, a series of digital documents, a spreadsheet, a mobile app, and more. There's no single “right way” to do it, and there's a wide range of health-tracking methods you can choose from (many of which we'll teach you how to use throughout this guide).

You can use your personal health journal to track and store just about any information you want to, and it can be as brief, detailed, creative, or minimalistic as you'd like. The specific techniques and organizational methods your use are less important than finding a system that works for you and that suits the subject matter in your journal.

You can adapt a health journal to just about any disease or purpose, and different people keep them for all sorts of different personal and functional reasons. Doctors often recommend health diaries as self-management tools for patients with chronic health problems, especially those that are difficult to manage, like COPD.

In research and healthcare settings, health diaries are sometimes referred to as “clinical diaries,” “patient diaries,” or “self-management diaries.” These are used by doctors, researchers, and other healthcare professionals, too, to collect specific health data on their patients and closely monitor their conditions.

What's the Point of Tracking Your Health?

At its core, health tracking is all about collecting data that helps you (and/or your doctor) learn more about your health. This data can include objective health readings, like your weight, or subjective analyses like how energetic you feel throughout the day.

These records can give you and your doctor a clearer picture of what you're tracking than you could get from memory alone. In fact, some degree of health tracking is all but required for people who need to keep a close eye on a chronic disease like COPD.

Another key part of tracking your health is finding ways to actually use the data you collect to improve your health in some way. Most of the time, this involves looking for patterns and trends in the data and using what you've learned to adjust your habits and plan for the future.

For example, you could use a food diary to keep better track of your diet so you can look back over it later to find areas you can improve. Or, you could use a medication tracker to record when you take your COPD medications so that you can look at those records later to know when you should take your next dose.

Recording your choices in your journal is also a form of accountability that can push you to make the kinds of choices that you'd feel proud to write down. In this way, a health journal can be a powerful motivational tool if you're trying to change your habits or improve your health in a specific way.

Why Should People with COPD Keep a Health Diary?

Anybody can benefit from tracking their health, but it's especially useful for people who need to manage chronic health problems like COPD. A health diary can help you with just about any aspect of COPD management, including monitoring COPD symptoms, keeping your treatment schedules straight, and making healthy changes like exercising more, quitting smoking, and reaching a healthy BMI.

If you have COPD, your ability to succeed in all of these areas can have a huge impact on your quality of life and the course of your disease. This makes it all the more important to have a dedicated health tracking system to help you manage your well-being.

Here are a few of the major benefits that keeping a health journal can have for people with COPD.

It eases the burden of managing your health

Just like using planners and lists can help you manage your work routine, tracking your health and your COPD treatments in a journal makes it easier to manage your COPD. It can also help ease some of the mental burden of COPD management, especially if you tend to have a lot of worry or anxiety about your health.

Having a place to write things down and easily reference them later frees up time and mental energy that you'd otherwise be using to keep track of it all in your head. It also makes it easier to detect problems that might cause you worry, such as signs of exacerbation and worsening disease.

A health diary lets you know what's going on with your body so you can spend less time stressing about what might be happening. All of this can help you feel more secure and more in control of your health; this is especially important during uncertain times like the current COVID-19 pandemic, which is particularly scary for people with COPD and other conditions that make them vulnerable to serious disease.

It can help you set and track your health goals

Keeping a health journal doesn't just help you learn about your health; it can also be a powerful tool for improving your health and reaching your COPD treatment goals. In fact, health and habit trackers are an integral part of effective goal-setting, and they can make all the difference when you're trying to make a healthy lifestyle change.

Your health journal not only helps you asses you where you are at now, but also where you're going and how things change over time. It provides a practical framework to help you organize your objectives, visualize your progress, and make sure you're on the right track to reach your goals.

Because of this, health tracking is a particularly valuable tool for people with COPD, who often need to make major health and lifestyle changes because of their disease. For some people, this means completely overhauling their current routine, something that's incredibly difficult to do without a well-structured plan.

That's where your health journal comes in; when you're making a major habit adjustment, you need a place to write down your goals, record your progress, and keep track of all the steps you need to take along the way. While this might sound like an obvious strategy, it takes a lot of planning and work to get it right, and a reliable health tracking system can be your key for success.

It can help your doctor monitor your treatment

Unless you have a miraculous memory, it's impossible to remember all the little details about your health, habits, symptoms and other important things your doctor might need to know. Human memory is notoriously unreliable, especially when it comes to details, which isn't ideal when your doctor needs correct information to properly treat you and your COPD.

However, you won't need to rely on memory if you have a health journal to record that information (e.g. your daily COPD symptoms) as you go. Then, you'll have accurate records that you can reference or bring to your doctor so he'll have more precise and nuanced information with which to evaluate your health.

It can help you recognize the signs of lung infections and COPD exacerbations

Keeping a close eye on your symptoms is the best way to catch COPD exacerbations, which often start with a slight uptick in respiratory symptoms. Unfortunately, this change is often subtle; many people don't notice it at first and, as a result, miss the opportunity for early treatment.

This is why many doctors encourage COPD patients to keep a written log of their symptoms and how they fluctuate over time. This makes it much easier to track subtle changes in your symptoms that can help you identify—and more accurately pinpoint the start of—a COPD exacerbation.

How to Use a Health Diary if You Have COPD

One of the great things about a personal health diary is that it can be essentially whatever you want it to be. It could be a simple log book, a planner, a habit-tracking chart, all of these things together, or anything in between.

It all depends on which health attributes you (or your doctor) are interested in tracking, and what you plan to do with the data you store. However broad or narrow your focus, you can tailor your personal journal to fit just about any particular need.

For example, your diary could help you manage healthy habits and work toward healthy goals, like eating healthier, exercising more, and taking your medications on time. You could also use a health diary to track and monitor certain aspects of your health, such as your weight, your physical activity, or your energy level from day to day.

You might also have specific health concerns that you want to monitor, such as your oxygen levels, blood pressure, or intake of specific nutrients. It's also a great way to keep track of your COPD symptoms and watch for patterns and triggers that could help you learn how to better manage your disease.

In the next sections, we're going to show you how you can use a health diary for a wide range of practical purposes, with a special emphasis on your diary can help you monitor and improve your COPD. We'll also introduce you to a variety of different tools and methodologies that can help you gather all kinds of useful data to record in your journal.

What To Record in Your COPD Health Diary

Information About Your Diet

An integral part of a healthy diet is keeping track of what you eat, and sometimes memory just isn't good enough to do the job. It's easy to underestimate unhealthy food choices or guess your calories wrong, which is why recording what you eat in a diary is one of the best ways to get an accurate picture of your dietary health.

This is especially important if you're trying to make changes to your diet, whether you're trying to lose weight, make healthier choices, correct a nutrient imbalance, or limit certain foods. These are changes that many people with COPD have to make after their diagnosis, since weight and diet can have a significant impact on your ability to breathe.

Because of this, doctors often prescribe special diets (e.g. low-salt or low-carbohydrate diets) and set target weight goals for COPD patients as part of their treatment. Unfortunately, people with COPD often have an extra hard time maintaining a healthy weight and diet, and often need extra help to succeed.

A health diary can provide that extra support by helping you track your food choices and manage a diet plan. This helps you understand your eating habits better, which is the first step to finding ways to improve it. It also forces you to think about your dietary choices more often, which helps you stay accountable to yourself and mindful about what you eat.

You can also use your health diary to schedule your diet and coordinate your meal routine. It can help you with everything from making shopping lists and meal planning to food prep and ingredient management.

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Used right, your health diary can help you develop dietary discipline and establish long-term habits that can not only help you reach your diet goals, but also maintain those healthy habits once you get there. Over time, this can make a huge difference in your overall health and your quality of life with COPD.

Here are some different ways you could use your health journal to track and manage your diet:

• Keep a simple food diary: Keep a log of the types and approximate amounts of all the foods and beverages you eat and drink throughout the day.
• Track your micro/macro-nutrient intake: This requires a more detailed log of what you eat and drink that includes nutritional information and precise portion sizes. Luckily, free food tracking applications can do most of the work for you (e.g. nutrient calculations, daily/weekly totals, trend analysis, etc.) as long as the information you enter is accurate and complete.
• Make a weekly meal schedule: Plan your diet ahead of time by working up a meal schedule for the coming days or weeks, either on your own or with the help of a doctor or dietitian. It could be as simple as a list of meal options to choose from or a detailed chart specifying exactly what you plan to eat for every meal each day.
• Track specific nutrients over time: Determine which nutrients you want to keep track of (e.g. things you're trying to limit, like saturated fat or salt) and keep a running total of how much of that nutrient is in the foods you eat throughout the day. Then, you can map the totals you're interested in (e.g. from each meal, each day, each week, etc.) onto a simple chart or graph to get a better picture of how your intake of that nutrient varies over time.

Information About Your Medication

People with COPD often take several medications and have complicated treatment schedules that require a great deal of discipline every day. This is a major source of stress for many COPD patients, and often results in occasional missed doses and other treatment mistakes.

Unfortunately, poor medication management can have serious and lasting health consequences for people with COPD, including worsened breathing problems and more frequent COPD exacerbations. That's why, if you have COPD, it's absolutely vital to have a system in place to help you keep track of your medications and take them correctly every day.

This is a perfect job for your health diary, which can be an invaluable tool for scheduling, remembering, and managing complex treatment plans. Whether you use a pen and paper or a mobile medicine tracking application, keeping a medication diary can reduce treatment errors and help you keep your schedule straight.

In fact, research shows that patients who keep medication diaries, even very simple ones, are more likely to take their medication correctly. Studies also show that health diaries can be valuable tools for patient-doctor coordination; it can help your doctor learn more about how you're using your medications (e.g. how often you need to use your rescue inhaler), how well you're adhering to prescribed treatments (e.g. how often you miss doses), and what—if any—changes need to be made to your treatment plan.

A medication diary can also relieve a great deal of stress associated with having to keep track of all your treatment details in your head. It gives you a reliable place to offload it all—your treatment schedules, coordinating difficulties, and any other details you stress about—so you don't need to worry or keep it in the back of your mind all the time.

Here are some ideas for how you can use your health diary to track and manage your medications:

• Make a minimalistic medication tracker: Make a simple list or chart of all of your doses of medication for the day or week, and mark them with the corresponding date at time after you take each dose. This helps you keep track of which medications you have and haven't taken already so you're less likely to skip or double up on doses. (We'll give you more detailed step-by-step instructions for how to make a medication tracker later on in this guide).
• Keep an oxygen therapy log: Keep a running total of the number of hours you use supplemental oxygen in your journal every day. You can also record more detailed information, like the time when you start and stop using oxygen, to get a fuller picture of how you utilize oxygen throughout the day.
• Make a basic medication log: Write each of your medications across the top of a page or chart, and mark down the the date and time you take each dose under the name of the corresponding medication. This can be particularly helpful for tracking your usage of as-needed medications (like rescue inhalers) that require spacing doses a certain length of time apart.

To learn more tips and techniques for managing your COPD medications, check out our guide on the topic here.

Your Physical Symptoms

As most COPD patients know, keeping close track of your symptoms is a key part of monitoring and managing COPD effectively. In fact, many doctors recommend using a logging system to record what symptoms you have and how severe they are every day.

Keeping a symptom log in your health diary can help you get to know your baseline COPD symptoms better and learn more about how—and possibly why—your symptoms change over time. This information is useful for several different reasons, including for gauging the pace of COPD progression (as indicated by worsening symptoms) and for evaluating how your symptoms respond to different treatments and medications.

Tracking your symptoms can also help you identify COPD exacerbations and monitor their course over time. Your records can also yield additional insight into the length, cause, and the nature of your COPD exacerbations, information that could help you and your doctor determine the best course of treatment.

Here are some ideas for how to use your health journal to track your COPD Symptoms:

• Keep a minimalistic daily symptom diary: At the end of every day, write down the date and some basic information about the symptoms you've experienced that day: e.g. describe them in a couple of sentences, rate them using descriptors like mild, moderate or severe, or jot down a couple bullet points.
• Make a daily symptom tracking chart: Decide on a scale to use for rating the overall severity of your COPD symptoms (e.g. via a numerical scale from 1-5, or a color-coded marking) and record your daily ratings in in a pre-made chart or graph.
• Track your symptoms individually: Make a list of all the symptoms you tend to experience regularly, and (separately) rate the severity of each one every day. Alternatively, you could simply mark a “yes” or “no” for each symptom or only list the the symptoms you experienced that particular day.
• Record your symptoms during everyday activities: Rate your symptoms and/or write down some notes about how you feel after everyday activities like cleaning, taking a walk, cooking a meal, etc. This can help you better understand the impact your COPD symptoms have on your life and identify ways to reduce or eliminate the burden caused by the most difficult tasks.

Instead of making your own, you can use a variety of pre-made symptom tracking templates available online, like this minimalistic tracker or this printable weekly symptom tracker (PDF link) from alnursing.org.

Your Exercise and Physical Activity

Getting plenty of exercise is an important part of COPD treatment, but it's one of lifestyle changes that people with COPD tend to struggle with the most. And that's not just because COPD symptoms make doing physical activities difficult, but also because building new exercise habits is hard thing for anyone to do—especially in older adulthood, which is when most people get diagnosed with COPD.

Unfortunately, the stakes are much higher for COPD patients, who have to maintain an active lifestyle to live a good quality of life. Getting regular exercise can make the difference between staying physically independent as your COPD progresses, and not having the endurance to do even light household tasks on your own.

Because of this, any tool that can help you stay active is worth using, and anything is better than giving up. You're much likely to succeed if you have a system—like a health journal—to guide you and help you overcome the additional physical challenges caused by COPD.

For example, you could use your journal plan out your exercise goals, your strategy for reaching them. You can also log your physical activities in your journal so you can track your progress and improvement, which can help you stay accountable and motivated to keep working toward your goals.

Here are a few ideas for how you can use your health journal to track your exercise habits:

• Keep an exercise log: Every day, take some time to write down any exercise or physical activities you've done throughout the day.
• Make a basic exercise planner: Make a chart or calendar in your health journal to keep track of when you need to work out as well as what type of workout you plan to do.
• Create an exercise habit tracker: Make a simple chart or graph to track information about your activity, such as the types of physical activities you do, your dedicated work-outs, or the number of minutes/hours of exercise you do throughout the week.

Your Mood and General Mental Well-being

Using your health journal to track your mental well-being is a great way to get more in tune with your emotions, including how you're coping mentally with COPD. It's also a great way to keep tabs on mental illnesses like anxiety and depression, which tends to affect people with COPD more often than people without the disease.

There's a wide range of mental health journaling methods to choose from, ranging from simple diary entries to complex mood and emotion-tracking spreadsheets. The simpler and briefer techniques make it easy to find trends and patterns quickly, while the more open-ended methods allow you to explore and express your thoughts in a deeper way.

A simple daily mood tracker, for example, can help you find patterns and possibly even identify triggers that affect your emotional well-being. You could also use your diary to keep tabs on specific feelings and psychological symptoms, such as anxiety, anger, or feelings of hopelessness and despair.

Of course, there's always the traditional personal diary format where you simply write down your thoughts however feels best to you at the time. Any technique will do as long as you have an idea of what kinds of personal struggles or mental traits you'd like to monitor or explore.

Daily medications are a primary life-line for people with COPD, and a necessary part of life for people with asthma and other respiratory diseases. In fact, most COPD patients have to follow a strict treatment regimen and take several different medications every day just to keep their symptoms under control.

Of these medications, inhalers are perhaps the most important and are certainly the most frequently prescribed medications for people with asthma and COPD. Unfortunately, an alarmingly high number of patients don't use their inhalers as they should.

A major reason for this is the fact that asthma and COPD medication regimens can be complicated and difficult to keep track of. However, there's a new kind of tool available, known as smart inhaler technology, that is designed specifically to address this problem.

Smart inhalers can help you manage your medication by recording when you use your inhaler and reminding you when it's time to take the next dose. This makes it easier to remember to take your medication on time and helps you keep track of how well you adhere to your treatment schedule.

What is a Smart Inhaler?

A smart inhaler is, essentially, an inhaler that is designed to communicate with a mobile phone application. This application helps you keep track of important information like your medication schedule and when you are supposed to take your next dose.

A sensor on the inhaler communicates with the mobile application via bluetooth so you can track your inhaler use data in the app. The app records the date, time, and sometimes even the location of each dose you take, and then uses this information to schedule your next dose reminder.

Some smart inhalers use a built-in sensor that's integrated into the body of the inhaler itself. Others, like the Propeller sensor, are more versatile external sensors that you can attached to a variety of different inhalers, including ones you already have.

Smart inhaler technology is useful for monitoring how well you adhere to your treatment schedule over time and for identifying ways you can improve. It also serves as a useful tool for reminding yourself when you last took a dose and for easily tracking how frequently you use your rescue inhaler.

You also can instruct your smart inhaler app to alert you via a phone alarm or notification whenever it's time to take another dose. These digital reminders make it much easier to keep up with a consistent treatment schedule and keep your respiratory symptoms under control.

Some smart inhalers include other helpful features, such as high pollen and pollution alerts or the ability to sense if your forget to bring your inhaler with you when you leave home. As the technology continues to develop, the range of helpful tools and features available via smart inhaler technology will also continue to grow.

What Kinds of Smart Inhalers are Available?

The variety of smart inhalers on the market today is somewhat limited. However, the technology seems to be catching on, and there's sure to be a wider variety of smart inhaler sensors and applications available in the coming years.

It's important to note that most smart inhaler sensors are only approved for use with specific types of medications and inhaler types. Before choosing a sensor, you should double check the manufacturer's website and the device specifications to make sure that it will work with the types of inhalers you're prescribed as well as the type of mobile phone you use.

Here are the two most popular smart inhaler technologies that are approved for use in the US:

• Propeller Smart Inhaler: An external sensor that you can attach to a wide variety of inhalers. Currently available for free to most people from the Propeller website.
• Adherium Hailie Smart Inhaler: An external sensor that you can attach to the following inhalers: Ventolin, Symbicort, ProAir, and Flovent. Available from the hailie.com store.

These products are not yet available in the United States or are currently in development:

• FindAir: Currently only available to purchase in Europe, this external sensor works with more than ten different types of metered-dose rescue inhalers. You can purchase this sensor (if you live in one of the approved European countries) and check to see if it works with your inhaler by visiting their website.
• Teva ProAir: In development
• 3M Intelligent Control Inhaler: In development

Why Should People With Asthma and COPD Consider Using a Smart Inhaler?

Despite the importance of the medication, too many people with COPD and other respiratory diseases take their inhalers for granted or struggle to keep up with their daily doses. However, experts believe that smart inhaler technology can make it easier for patients to comply with treatment and keep their symptoms under control.

Your Inhaler is Your Lifeline

First of all, every person with COPD should understand how vital their inhalers are for managing their disease. Inhaled medications are quick-acting, versatile, and effective, in large part because they deliver medication directly to your lungs, and they form the cornerstone of just about every COPD treatment plan.

Most people with asthma and COPD use inhalers for both long-term symptom management and for short-term relief from breathlessness and other respiratory symptoms. When you use your inhaler as your doctor instructs you to, it can allow you to breathe better, live better, and—in the case of people with COPD—even live longer than you could without your medication.

However, better breathing and disease control isn't the only reason that medication is important. Keeping up with your treatment schedule is vital for living a healthy and fulfilling life.

When your symptoms are controlled via medication, it makes all sorts of activities easier. This includes basic tasks that are important for daily living, like cooking, cleaning, and walking to get around.

Using your inhaler as directed can also allow you to exercise better and live a more active life. This makes it easier to live a healthy lifestyle and keep your body strong, which is vital for mainting your mobility and your quality of life when you suffer from COPD.

Because of this, it's extremely important to keep up with your medications and use your inhaler exactly as your doctor instructs you to. However, while this seems simple in practice, many patients fail to use their inhalers correctly by using them improperly, inconsistently, and frequently missing doses.

Most People with COPD Do Not Use Their Inhalers As Directed

Unfortunately, an alarmingly large number of COPD patients don't use their inhaler correctly or as often as they should. This is often the result of ignorance, laziness, poor training, or a simple lack of proper diligence in keeping up with treatment.

In fact, studies show that up to 70 percent of people with COPD use improper inhaler techniques, which can significantly affect how well the medication works. Other studies estimate that only about 50 percent of people who are prescribed inhalers use them as frequently as they should.

This is important, since not using your inhaler as directed can severely affect your ability to manage your disease and your symptoms. For example, if you have COPD and don't follow your treatment plan exactly, you risk having worse symptoms, more exacerbations, and even quicker lung function loss.

Here is a list of some of the potential consequences of not adhering to your medication schedule:

• Increased risk of death
• Increased risk of quicker lung function decline (COPD)
• Increased risk for exacerbations (COPD)
• Increased risk of your medication not working
• May make it more difficult to effectively control your symptoms and manage your disease
• Makes it difficult for your doctor to evaluate your current medications and treatments accurately

Unfortunately, lackluster treatment compliance is commonplace in patients with chronic diseases like COPD who need constant, life-long treatment. It can be difficult and tiresome to adhere to a strict medication regimen for so long, which is why many people with COPD and other respiratory conditions become more careless and apathetic about about their treatment over time.

Studies also suggest that COPD patients are less likely to take their medications when they're feeling better and have fewer symptoms. However, it's not okay to skip a scheduled dose just because you feel like you don't need it; it's just as important to use your inhaler when you're feeling good as when you're feeling bad.

Many people with COPD have to manage several different types of medication at once, which is another reason why so many patients find it difficult to stick to a consistent regimen. It can be particularly difficult to manage multiple medications that vary significantly in type; for example, some COPD patients have to use supplemental oxygen, multiple kinds of inhalers, and pills you take by mouth.

Keeping all of these different medications straight can get confusing, and it can quickly get complicated when you have to remember schedules, correct dosages, and proper technique for half a dozen different types of medicine. It can be especially difficult to cope with when you're dealing with anxiety or life gets so busy that you want to avoid anything that heaps on extra stress.

That's why smart inhaler technology has the potential to be so useful for people with asthma and COPD; it can relieve some of the logistical burden that comes with managing your health. It can keep track of your medication schedule for you and remind you to take each dose so you don't have to shoulder the responsibility alone.

In this way, experts believe that smart inhaler technology can help people with respiratory conditions better adhere to their treatment plan. With the assistance of a smart inhaler app, you're less likely to miss a dose and more likely to comply with the medication schedule that your doctor prescribes.

Taking your medication on time and as instructed is vital for preventing exacerbations, keeping your symptoms stable, and living the best life that you can. Because it can help you comply with your treatment better, using a smart inhaler may even improve how effectively your medication works to manage your disease.

Research Suggests that Smart Inhaler Technology Really Works

Experts have advocated for this kind of medication tracking technology for many years as a way to improve treatment compliance. Although the technology is still new, early research on the effectiveness of smart inhalers have come up with optimistic results.

One study from the Cleveland Clinic found that people with COPD who used the Propeller smart inhaler were significantly less likely to be hospitalized, with a 35% reduction in the number of hospital visits compared to the year before. While this study was small, including only 39 patients, the results are promising and suggest that smart inhaler technology can actually improve patients' health in addition to improving medication adherence.

Additional encouraging research comes from studies of asthma patients, including one study that looked at the Adherium Smartinhaler. This study found that patients who used the smart inhaler technology had a variety of positive health outcomes, including better medication adherence, fewer hospitalizations, and fewer doctor's visits needed.

How Smart Inhalers Can Benefit People with Asthma & COPD

Now that we've explained how smart inhaler technology can help people with asthma and COPD in general, let's take a closer look at what a smart inhaler could do for you. In the next sections, we'll discuss in more detail some of the specific benefits that smart inhaler technology has to offer.

Smart Inhalers Provide Convenient, Effortless Reminders

By working in tandem with your mobile phone, smart inhalers can send alerts to you directly through your phone. That way, you can get convenient reminders you to take your medication no mater where you are.

And because the smart inhaler records your medication schedule and the last time you took a dose, you don't even have to set the reminders yourself. The smart inhaler app can schedule your next dose and set up an automatic alert to let you know when the right time comes.

These reminders follow you wherever you go and make keeping up with your medication schedule as simple and effortless as possible. This is much more convenient, and potentially much more reliable, than keeping track of your schedule on paper or having to set manual reminders on your phone.

Smart Inhalers Can Prevent Missed or Repeated Doses

It can be difficult to remember the last time you used your inhaler when you have to use it multiple times a day. When you do something so often and it becomes part of your daily routine, each instance tends to blur into the next it's hard to tell them apart.

This can make it difficult to remember on your own the exact time you took your last inhaler dose. It can put you in the difficult position of wondering, “Did I use my inhaler already today, or am I remembering the time I used it yesterday?”

It's especially easy to lose track when you have to use more than one inhaler, as many people with asthma and COPD have to do. You might find yourself wondering, “Did I already take my maintenance inhaler? Or was it my quick-relief inhaler that I used earlier this morning?”

Human memory just isn't very reliable, and mis-remembering your last dose could lead you to to take an extra dose on accident, or skip a dose because you falsely believe you've taken it already. This can be dangerous when you rely on your medication to help you breathe and manage your respiratory disease.

Fortunately, smart inhalers eliminate this uncertainty by automatically keeping a record of each and every time you use your inhaler. That way, you can always check the app to see when you took your last dose and remind yourself which inhalers you've already used that day.

This can be particularly useful for people with mild cognitive impairment, a condition that affects your memory and makes it difficult to remember small things like what you did this morning. Mild cognitive impairment is extremely common in people with COPD, and especially patients with severe hypoxemia (low blood oxygen levels).

Smart Inhalers Can Help Reduce Treatment-Related Anxiety

It can be extremely stressful to adhere to a strict medication regimen with multiple medications that you have to take at certain times each day. Having to keep multiple medication schedules in your head and remember things like when you last used a certain inhaler can take up a lot of mental space.

What's more, when you have a chronic disease that requires constant management, forgetting to take your medication can have serious consequences. Because of this, the fear or missing a dose or not being able to keep up with your treatment regimen can turn in to a major source of anxiety.

However, smart inhalers can help relieve some of that worry by doing some of that remembering and scheduling for you. By tracking your doses and reminding you when to use your inhaler, it can take some of that extra weight off your mind.

In this way, using a smart inhaler frees you from the need to arrange manual reminders and constantly keep your inhaler schedule in your head. This can free up mental energy for other important things in life and make your daily treatment regimen less stressful to manage.

Smart Inhalers Can Help Make Your Treatment More Effective

A large number of people who use inhalers find it difficult to take their medication consistently on their own. This leads to missed doses, doubled doses, and otherwise using your inhaler differently than your doctor recommends.

This can significantly reduce the success of your treatment and cause your medication to be less effective than it otherwise would be. Most personalized treatment plans are carefully designed to help you manage your symptoms in the best way possible, but they only work if you actually do what your treatment plan says to do.

Luckily, smart inhaler technology can help you keep track of your medications and how well you're sticking to your treatment plan. By helping you follow your medication schedule that your doctor prescribes more diligently, it can help you manage your symptoms better than before.

You and your doctor can also use to your smart inhaler app to review the full record of every single time you've used your medication, which is much more accurate than using your memory alone. This allows you to look back and see exactly where you've gone wrong and what you can do to better follow your treatment plan.

Smart inhaler technology is also a useful tool for monitoring how you use your as-needed rescue inhaler for short-term symptom relief. An accurate record of how frequently you use your rescue inhaler is valuable data you and your doctor can use to track the severity of your symptoms and watch out for when your symptoms get worse.

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Some smart inhaler apps also record your location when you take a dose, which can be especially valuable for tracking your rescue inhaler use. In some cases, you may even be able to use this information to pinpoint a certain place or situation that triggers your respiratory symptoms.

All of this information can give you valuable insight about your health and your inhaler use habits that you can use to learn how to better control your symptoms. It also allows your doctor to evaluate the effectiveness of your medication more accurately and make tailored adjustments to help you better manage your disease.

Conclusion

If you have asthma or COPD, doing everything you can to adhere to the medication schedule your doctor gives you is essential for your health. That means knowing how to use your inhalers, when to use each inhaler, and what he correct dose for each medication is.

While this can be a lot to manage, it can be easier when you have practical tools like smart inhaler technology to give you a hand. Smart inhalers can save you a lot of time and mental energy managing your medication, freeing you up to enjoy your life without the constant worry of missing a dose.

When you take your medication properly, it can improve your symptoms, your quality of life, and your overall well-being in a number of significant ways. It can not only make it easier to breathe, but it can also help you maintain the energy and oxygen levels you need to live an active and healthy life.

Despite the fact that COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in America, it is, unfortunately, a condition that the average person knows next to nothing about. Many people have never even heard of COPD, let alone how it's caused or how common, serious, and deadly it can be.

Among the uninformed are thousands of at-risk people who will develop the disease later in life, people who don't have the knowledge to recognize the symptoms or get treatment when they appear. In fact, many people who are diagnosed with COPD never even knew the disease existed before their doctors gave them the news.

These are tragic situations that often lead to delayed diagnosis, misdiagnosis, and missed opportunities to slow the disease progression while it's still in the early stages. However, it doesn't have to be this way; there are many ways to raise public education and awareness so fewer people are blindsided and left vulnerable to the disease.

This is one of the primary goals of COPD advocates, who work hard to make the disease better-known in the media and in public discourse in general. However, COPD advocates do much more than just bring attention to the cause; they play a valuable role in supporting COPD research, political activism, and providing tangible support services to patients and families of patients with COPD.

In this post, we're going to talk more about what COPD advocacy looks like and what it means both for public health and for people with COPD. We'll introduce you to some of the biggest players in the COPD nonprofit and advocacy community, take a look at their most valuable contributions, and discuss a variety of different ways that you can get involved.

We believe that every person should have the knowledge they need to keep their lungs healthy, and that every person with COPD should have access to accurate information, adequate health care, and a compassionate network of support. In order to bring this vision to reality, it requires the effort of hundreds of volunteers, career advocates, and people like you working together to bring positive change at the local level and on the national stage.

Why COPD Advocacy Matters

Unlike more high-profile health conditions (e.g. cancer or heart disease), COPD isn't something you hear about often in the news or casual conversation. As a result, most people don't know much of anything about COPD unless they've encountered it in their personal life, which usually doesn't happen until they, or a loved one, is diagnosed with the disease.

This relegates millions of people who are living with COPD—including more than 16 million Americans who have the disease—to obscurity. That is a massive number of people that equates to six percent of the US population and continues to grow every year, albeit slower now than the rapid 50% increase it saw over the past two decades.

COPD is too important an issue to leave on the outskirts of public discourse, and lack of public awareness has consequences not only for those with COPD, but also for public health in general. Let's take a look at some of the main reasons why we need COPD advocates to raise awareness and work for the interests of people affected by the disease.

Lack of Funding Limits COPD Services & Stunts Research

COPD is an underfunded disease in both the private and public sectors, in part due to lack of public attention and concern. Hospitals and treatment centers just don't have enough funds to put toward educational resources, support services, and affordable treatment options for people with COPD.

As a result, many people with COPD—and their families—struggle because they don't have access to adequate information, treatment and other forms of healthcare support. Advocates help by bringing volunteers, donors, and public resources to their aid, and promoting more and better facilities to accommodate the large number of people who have the disease.

Public awareness can also have an effect on medical research, since researchers often find it easier to secure funding for topics that have public appeal. On the other hand, it can be more difficult to get financial and academic support for studies on diseases like COPD which are less likely to show up on the public's radar.

Lack of Representation Excludes People with COPD from Public Discourse

Another problem with lack of public awareness is that people with COPD tend to be left out of important conversations regarding public health policies and priorities that affect them. This includes discussions about health insurance coverage, medicare reform, disability accommodations, and more.

After all, it's no surprise that those with the authority to allocate funds and resources are hesitant to prioritize the needs of people with a disease that is, from a public awareness standpoint, relatively obscure. As a result, there is a lack of public resources, support, information to help people struggling with COPD and the devastating hardships it causes.

Lack of Public Health Knowledge Puts More People at Risk for COPD

Many people who will develop COPD later in life don't yet know that they are at risk for the disease. This is why public education is so important; it can show people how to recognize early COPD symptoms and risk factors, allowing them to get earlier and more accurate diagnoses.

Public awareness also plays a huge role in COPD prevention, since people are much more likely to take precautions to avoid a disease that they recognize and understand. The more people know about COPD, the more likely they are to make healthier choices that, overall, could significantly reduce the prevalence of this highly avoidable disease.

This is why COPD advocacy is so important; capturing people's attention is a necessary step toward getting COPD and COPD-related issues on the public's agenda. Public awareness is also key for COPD prevention and diagnosis, especially since it is a notoriously under-diagnosed and misdiagnosed disease.

So, in summary, here are some of the main reasons why COPD advocacy matters:

• It helps raise funds for a variety of COPD causes, including research, education, and treatment services.
• It gives people with COPD access to direct support from activists and organizations that offer understanding and compassion along with a variety of practical services.
• It helps connect people with COPD (and their families) to resources and programs that can help them, including treatment centers, healthcare assistance, informational materials, support groups, financial aid, and more.
• It helps to dispel common misunderstandings and misconceptions about COPD and about people who have the disease.
• It promotes public support and understanding for people with COPD, helping them feel less isolated and invisible.
• It can help people better recognize COPD symptoms so they can get earlier and more accurate diagnoses.
• It can help the general public better understand how to prevent COPD, thereby reducng the number of people who develop the disease later in life.

Who Advocates for COPD, and What Do They Actually Do?

Like most grassroots initiatives, the cause of COPD advocacy is led by a collection of loosely-associated non-profit organizations, volunteers, and activist groups. As we've touched on already, these advocates are devoted to advancing a variety of different objectives aimed at improving the lives of COPD patients and reducing the prevalence of the disease.

These include wide-reaching goals like improving public health education, furthering COPD research and prevention efforts, and increasing patients' access to much-needed treatments and support services. Many COPD and lung-health activists also turn their efforts toward clean air initiatives, working to shape public policy and promote community efforts to curb air pollution, tobacco smoking, and other public hazards that contribute to COPD.

In service toward these efforts, activists work in many different places and circumstances. Some work behind the scenes in planning, outreach, coordination, and administrative roles; others work out on the field, directly interacting with COPD patients and their families, as well as doctors, researchers, health authorities, policy-makers, and more.

Specific activities and campaigns vary among activist groups, and range from designing public media campaigns to running call centers that provide advice and direction to people with COPD and other lung diseases. Others include lobbying legislators and policymakers in the name of COPD-related interests, or raising funds to donate to research and practical services for people with COPD.

For all these reasons and more, COPD advocates' play an important role in advancing the interests of COPD patients and improving public health. Next, lets take a closer look at some of the leading COPD advocacy groups to learn more about what they do and what kinds of services they offer for people with COPD.

The Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD)

The Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease, or GOLD for short, is an organization that has been advocating for people with COPD for more than twenty years. It was established in 1997 in collaboration with other well-respected health organizations, including the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and US National Institutes of Health.

The organization's main work revolves around COPD prevention and treatment, particularly the research and development of better standards for COPD diagnosis and better strategies for managing the disease at different stages. Toward this end, GOLD has published numerous evidence-based guidelines—developed by committees made up of leading science experts—outlining the “best” ways to diagnose and and treat COPD in clinical practice.

The most important of these contributions is GOLD's Global Strategy for Prevention, Diagnosis, and Management of COPD. This freely-available document, of which GOLD releases an updated version every year, includes up-to-date research and detailed clinical guidelines for COPD treatment that are used by doctors and healthcare professionals all across the world.

Another major initiative spearheaded by GOLD is World COPD Day, which was created as a means to spread awareness about COPD and the resources that are available to help patients and healthcare workers alike. GOLD uses this day as an opportunity to disseminate helpful educational materials and host public events catering to anyone who wants to learn more about getting involved in the effort to “reduce the burden of COPD.”

The COPD Foundation

The COPD Foundation is a nonprofit organization that works to better the lives of people with COPD through initiatives that further COPD research, education, awareness, and expanded services for people with COPD. It does this primarily by providing a variety of educational resources for COPD patients and caregivers on their website, and by establishing programs that directly serve people who are affected by COPD.

According to their website, the organization is dedicated to the following main missions:

• Working for better and more affordable COPD treatments
• Supporting initiatives for expanded COPD services
• Improving the lives of people with COPD through research, education, and awareness
• Supporting initiatives to prevent COPD and slow the progression of the disease

One of the major services offered by the COPD foundation a large online social network called COPD360Social. This community is provides supportive environment for patients, families, and caregivers to connect and share stories, information, advice, and encourage one another online.

Another service offered by the COPD foundation is a mobile application called the COPD Pocket Consultant Guide, which contains a variety of helpful tools for both COPD patients and healthcare providers. It includes educational materials like instructional videos for using inhalers and interactive features like an exercise tracker, medication calendar, and a COPD action plan manager to help you keep track of important aspects of COPD management.

The COPD foundation is also involved in political activism, particularly in promoting public policies that support the following objectives: more affordable COPD healthcare, better access to routine COPD care, better regulation of medical devices and medication, and improved public health in the form of better education, tobacco control, and clean air initiatives.

The nonprofit foundation also publishes original research in its own scientific journal titled Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Journal of the COPD Foundation. Additional services they offer include professional development resources for healthcare workers, an educational video series for patients, and a large repository of educational guides full of practical information and advice for COPD patients and caregivers.

How to Get Involved

The COPD foundation runs a sophisticated network of volunteers that are divided into groups that focus on specific areas of COPD advocacy. They include community leaders (State Captains), public ambassadors (Community Connectors), political advocates (Policy Champions), fundraisers (Resource Champions), and more.

If you'd like to volunteer to help the COPD foundation, you can sign up online through their website. If you think you have what it takes to take on a more involved leadership role, you can also apply to be a State Captain to coordinate volunteers groups and activities in your community.

You can also visit the COPD Foundation's COPD Action Center, which makes it simple to get involved in current political initiatives related to COPD and makes contacting your representatives a breeze. The action center's “Find Politicians” service find your finds your representatives' contact information for you, and their action alerts include sample scripts you can follow when writing your email or making a call.

The American Lung Association

Founded in 1904, The American lung association is one of the longest-lived nonprofit organizations advocating for people lung diseases like COPD. Their main objective is to promote “healthy lungs and healthy air” through public education, research, and political activism.

The American Lung Association works with a variety of different groups, including scientists, healthcare professionals, policy experts, and local activists to advocate for cleaner air, tobacco control, increased public awareness about lung health issues, and more extensive support for people affected by lung diseases. They enact this work on both the local and national level through a wide network of associations spread all across the US.

These groups provide community awareness and education and organize in-person support groups for people with COPD and other lung diseases. They also do a good deal of local activism, working to support policies and initiatives addressing the issues and priorities that matter the most to their respective communities.

In Colorado, for example, the American Lung Association coordinates two Clean Cities Coalitions dedicated to reducing air pollution—and particularly automobile emissions—throughout the state. These coalitions drive meaningful projects like the Driving Change program, which helps large employers switch from fossil-fuel powered vehicles to less-polluting electric and hybrid versions

The American Lung Association also furthers COPD and lung disease research by conducting original studies and providing grants and financial awards to outside research groups. They also run an Epidemiology and Statistics Unit, which monitors and reports on important lung disease trends, including morbidity and mortality in COPD.

How to Get Involved

If you're interested in working as an advocate for the American Lung Association, you can sign up to volunteer on their website. You can also find out about local initiatives they're running in your state by visiting their “In Your Community” page.

Volunteer opportunities include things like staffing special events, conducting local community advocacy, and coordinating support groups for people with COPD (Better Breathers Clubs). If you have the right skills, you can also volunteer to serve on one of their expert advisory committees or teach a class for their Open Airways for Schools or Tobacco Education programs.

You can also join the American Lung Association's Lung Action Network, an email notification system that alerts you when there is an opportunity to contact your elected representatives about important policy issues related to COPD and other lung diseases. They also provide a repository of “tweetable facts” and recommended hashtags that you can use to raise COPD awareness within your own social network.

If you or a loved one has had a personal experience with COPD, you can also help the American Lung Association by sharing your story through their online submission form. This allows the organization to share your story with others via their newsletters and social media posts as a way to improve public awareness and spread hope within the lung disease community.

Other COPD Advocacy Groups and Resources

You don't have to be part of a large or established national organization in order to be an advocate for COPD. The major national organizations we've outlined above make up only a small part of the large network of activists and advocacy groups that work toward COPD-related causes.

To learn more about some of these other organizations you can check out the list below, or you can find a more comprehensive list from the COPD Foundation here.

Here are some additional groups and organizations that advocate for people with COPD:

• The COPD National Action Plan
• The Pulmonary Education and Research Foundation
• The Emphysema Foundation For Our Right to Survive
• The American Association for Respiratory Care
• The US COPD Coalition
• The Respiratory Health Association's COPD Advocacy Group

Additionally, there are many small, locally-focused advocacy groups operating out of hospitals, homes, and nonprofit offices all across the US. But even if you don't have an organized group in your area to work with, there are still other ways to help out your COPD local community (which we'll discuss more in the following sections).

How to Get Involved with COPD Advocacy

All the COPD organizations and initiatives and organizations we've mentioned wouldn't exist without the hard work and dedication of their staff and volunteers. It takes real people and real voices to keep the cause alive, and the more helping hands they are, the better.

Luckily, it's easy to join the cause for COPD advocacy, whether you're interested in volunteering your time, supporting a specific organization, or simply lending your voice to the cause. If you're ready to get started, continue reading to learn more about some easy ways to get involved.

Volunteer for a Nonprofit Group

Many nonprofits are constantly in need of volunteers to help with various campaigns and activities. Volunteer duties can range from things like collecting donations and staffing events to lobbying citizens and legislators for clean air reform.

Getting involved is usually pretty simple; most COPD organizations have information for prospective volunteers right on their website, making it easy to see what kind of help they need. Some even have online forms you can fill out to request more information or apply to be a volunteer.

Donate to a Worthwhile Cause

Many nonprofit and research organizations are funded in part through charitable donations. These donations help pay for all kinds of necessary costs, including staff, supplies, education campaigns, policy initiatives, research, patient services, and funding for any other activities they do.

Before you contribute, however, make sure you do some basic research on the group who will receive your donation to make sure your money is going to a trustworthy cause. Beware of misleading or fraudulent organizations that ask for money under the guise of a legitimate nonprofit or research organization.

Help Spread the Word

While volunteering and giving financial contributions are great, you can be a COPD advocate without having to dig into your wallet or your free time. Instead, you can help out simply by spreading the word about COPD and worthwhile COPD causes.

One way to do this is by supporting COPD advocacy organizations and lung health groups on social media. Simply interacting with their posts and profiles through follows, likes, and comments can help extend their infl

Consider this hypothetical scenario: you have a COPD exacerbation and your shortness of breath suddenly gets much worse than usual. You call your doctor to see what you should do, and she tells you to go to the hospital right away.

If this happened, would you be ready? Would you be able to quickly gather the documents, medical equipment, and other supplies that you need?

If your answer is no, or you're not sure, then you might have a serious need for an emergency action plan. Luckily, it doesn't take much time or effort to prepare for medical emergencies, and doing so could save your life in a critical situation.

To help you get started, we've created this guide explaining how to prepare for COPD medical emergencies and unexpected hospital visits. Throughout this post, we'll go though all the different components of a good emergency action plan and walk you through the steps to make one for yourself.

We'll also explain how to recognize a variety of different COPD-related emergencies and how to know what you should do when your symptoms get worse. Then, we'll teach you how to put together a variety of practical tools that can help you respond more quickly and efficiently during a medical emergency, including:

• An emergency contact and medical info card
• An emergency grab bag with essential documents and items
• A personalized hospital care kit for basic comfort away from home

When you or someone you love has COPD, you never know when a medical emergency will strike. Whether it's because of an illness, exacerbation, or another complication, just about every person with COPD will—at some point or another—need to make a sudden visit to the hospital or emergency room.

That's why it's vital to be ready to spring into action whenever that time may come. Having a plan and a stash of supplies can make all the difference in the middle of a medical crisis, helping you to get to the hospital sooner and ensuring that you have everything you need once you are there.

Recognizing the Signs of an Emergency

The first step to handling a COPD-related medical emergency is recognizing that you have an emergency in the first place. In order to do so, you need to pay attention to your body and know how to identify the signs that you need immediate medical help.

COPD exacerbations are the most common reason for hospitalization and emergency room visits among people with COPD. Of course, not all exacerbations get that bad; some are mild enough to treat at home with medication and guidance from your doctor.

However, it's important to be aware that minor exacerbations can quickly get out of hand and become much more severe. If that happens, you might have to go to the emergency room or check into a hospital for more aggressive in-patient treatment.

That's why it's important to keep close tabs on your COPD symptoms from day to day so you can recognize any changes. If you notice your symptoms flare up and don't improve within a a couple days, that means you might need additional treatment to manage the exacerbation.

Major Signs of a COPD Exacerbation:

• Worse than usual shortness of breath
• Shortness of breath at rest
• Coughing more than usual
• Increase in sputum (mucus you cough up)
• Change in the color of your mucus or sputum
• Increased fatigue
• Fever, shaking, or chills
• Needing to use your rescue inhaler more often than usual

You should also have a COPD action plan that tells you exactly what to do whenever your symptoms get worse. It should tell you which medications to take, when you should call your doctor, and when you should call an ambulance or go to the emergency room.

If you cannot get over an exacerbation on your own, spending some time in the hospital is sometimes the only way to recover. If your symptoms get very severe or you experience breathlessness that won't go away, don't wait and seek medical care immediately.

Severe COPD Symptoms that Could Require Emergency Treatment:

• Shortness of breath that is sudden or more severe than usual
• Coughing up blood
• New chest pain
• Difficulty waking up
• Severe restlessness or anxiety
• Confusion
• Extreme weakness or fatigue
• Flu symptoms, including body ache, fever, and sore throat
• Swelling in the legs

Hypoxia is another common COPD complication that should be treated as a medical emergency. It happens when your blood oxygen saturation falls to dangerously low levels, starving your body of oxygen and potentially causing life-threatening complications.

Severe hypoxia can be fatal if you don't get immediate treatment to increase the amount of oxygen in your blood. However, even mild hypoxia can lead to serious problems like high blood pressure and cognitive decline.

Your risk for hypoxia is higher if you if you already suffer from chronic hypoxemia (blood oxygen levels that are lower than what is considered healthy). It can also cause acute respiratory failure, a life-threatening condition that can occur very suddenly, especially during severe COPD exacerbations.

There are two main types of respiratory failure that occur in people with COPD: one is the result of low blood oxygen levels (hypoxemic respiratory failure), while one is the result of too much carbon dioxide building up in your blood (hypercapnic respiratory failure). If not treated quickly, both severe hypoxia and acute respiratory failure can quickly result in severe organ damage and death.

Signs of Severe Hypoxia or Respiratory Failure

• Rapid breathing
• Racing heartbeat
• Shortness of breath at rest
• Slow heartbeat
• Irregular heartbeat
• Inability to breathe or catch your breath
• Dizziness or lightheadedness
• Inability to communicate
• Profuse sweating
• Extreme sleepiness and fatigue
• Confusion
• Blue or gray tinted skin, especially on fingertips, toes, or lips

Despite advances in COPD treatment and hospital care, people still die from treatable causes just because they don't make it to the hospital quickly enough. So if something feels wrong, don't be afraid to seek help, and never ignore the warning signs of a potential medical emergency.

How to Prepare for an Emergency

Planning ahead for a medical emergency is all about making it as simple as possible for you or someone else to respond to and get help fast. That means being able to identify the emergency immediately, promptly call for help, and quickly gather all the essential supplies and documents you need.

In the following sections, we'll show you some practical tools and strategies doing each of these things, and how to put them all together into an effective emergency action plan. That way, when emergency strikes, you will have everything you need to handle it confidently, efficiently, and with the least amount of stress.

Have a COPD Action Plan

A COPD action plan is essentially the instructions for your COPD treatment written down in a way that is easy to follow and simple to understand. If you don't have a written COPD action plan yet, ask your doctor to make one for you; you can even use a handy pre-made template like this one from the American Lung Association (PDF link).

Having a COPD action plan is important because it tells you you exactly how to treat your COPD symptoms and flare-ups in the most effective way. It also tells you how to recognize the signs that you need to seek additional medical help, either by calling your doctor or going to the emergency room.

The instructions and descriptions a COPD action plan serve as a guide to monitoring your symptoms, managing them better, and recognizing when they've gotten out of your control. In this way, a good COPD action plan can both help prevent medical emergencies and help you respond to them appropriately when they occur.

For more information, check out or guide explaining COPD action plans and how to use them from our Respiratory Resource Center.

Have a Trustworthy Mode of Communication

When you're in an emergency, a phone might be your only way to connect to the outside world. In moments like those, it's absolutely vital to have a reliable mobile phone you can use to call for help.

If you have COPD and don't have a mode of communication you can count on, it's time to get one fast. You should also make sure that you know how to use your phone and and that you feel comfortable making calls.

In case you can't use your usual phone for some reason, you should also keep something like a spare, charged cell phone battery or a separate emergency phone on hand. You can also use your car to charge up your phone battery in a pinch as long as you have the right kind of adapter for your car.

Be Prepared for Environmental Disasters

If you live in a disaster-prone area (or even if you don't), it's a good idea to plan ahead for environmental emergencies like extreme weather and natural disasters. These kinds of events, which can leave you stranded without power or a means to get supplies, are particularly dangerous for people with chronic diseases like COPD.

One of the most important things to do is make sure that you have a way to call for help if the power ever goes out. Even just an old phone with a fully charged battery can be a lifesaver in an emergency.

If you rely on an oxygen concentrator for supplemental oxygen therapy, then you should also have a backup oxygen supply that doesn't rely on electricity to work. However, you should inspect any oxygen tanks you keep in storage regularly, since some (especially liquid oxygen cylinders) can lose oxygen over time.

The American Red Cross also suggests keeping a home emergency survival kit, which includes:

• A first aid kit
• A flashlight & extra batteries
• A battery-powered radio & extra batteries
• A multipurpose tool
• An emergency document folder (we'll show you how to make your own in a section just below)
• Sanitation and hygiene products
• A 7-day supply of medication and medical equipment
• A cell phone and charger
• An emergency blanket
• Extra cash
• Maps of your local area
• In the case of a very serious disaster, a 2-week supply of water and non-perishable food.

Here are some more tips for preparing for power outages and other environmental emergencies that could affect your ability to get medical care:

• Keep a backup source of electricity, such as a gas-powered generator or a backup home battery bank.
• Ask your doctor if he can give you an extra supply of medicine to keep in case there is an emergency that leaves you unable to access or refill your prescriptions.
• Work out a plan with neighbors, family,or friends to ensure that someone can check up on you during a power outage or weather emergency. Let them know if there are any specific supplies or help you will need (e.g. assistance setting up your generator safely).
• If you use an oxygen concentrator or any other electricity-powered medical device, let your local power company know. Then, if there is a power outage, they might be able to prioritize your area as they work to get the power back on.
• Make sure your cell phone (and your emergency backup phone) is able to receive Wireless Emergency Alerts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
• Don't wait until the last minute if you are told you need to evacuate your home; leave and get to a safe place as early as you can.
• Anxiety and panic can make your breathlessness worse, but having a plan and supply kit ready can do wonders for helping you stay calm and collected during an environmental emergency.

Make an Emergency Contact List

The very first thing that you have to have to respond to a medical emergency is basic information about how to get the medical help you need. You should always call 911 for an immediate, life-threatening emergency, but it's also important to have an emergency contact list on hand.

Your emergency contact list should include:

• The contact information for your local hospital plus directions for how to get there
• The contact information for your primary care doctor and any other medical specialists that treat you (e.g. your pulmonologist or respiratoy therapist)
• The contact information for the person (or people) close to you who should be notified in the case of an emergency
• The contact information for each person or place should include:
• Full name of the person or place (For doctors, include the name of the medical facility they work in.)
• Full address
• Phone number{s) including area code

Having this list on hand will ensure that you can contact the hospital and get there quickly in an urgent situation. It also makes it easier for anyone who helps you in an emergency to take action and transport you to the best place for treatment.

Your emergency contact list can also help emergency and hospital personnel contact anyone they need to—such as your family or your doctor—about your condition and care. It could even help you get better treatment by allowing medical personnel to get medical records and other vital information more quickly.

Prepare an Emergency Info Folder

The purpose of an emergency info folder is to keep important documents like medical records, insurance information, and more together in an easy-to-grab package. That way, when a medical emergency strikes, you'll have everything that you and the hospital staff might need to give you the best possible care.

Essentially, your emergency grab bag should contain everything a doctor would need to get up-to-date on your health condition and treatment. It should also include any documents the hospital needs for insurance, financial, or administrative reasons, including personal ID, health insurance information, and some means of financing or payment.

Here is a list of important records you should keep in your emergency info folder:

• A copy of your emergency contact card
• A copy of your health insurance card (and any other important policy information)
• Personal identification (e.g. driver's license or passport)
• A list of all medications and supplements you take, including:
• The name of each medication and supplement
• Your regular dosage for each medication
• How frequently you take each medication
• The name and contact info for the doctor who prescribed these medications
• Important medical info and documents, including:
• A brief description of all health conditions you have
• A list of any food or medicine allergies you have
• Documentation of major treatments, operations, and noteworthy test results (e.g. x-rays, lab results, surgery reports, etc.)
• If applicable, also include any relevant documentation regarding your legal guardianship, power of attorney, or legal caretaker(s)
• A form of payment, such as: a credit card, check book, HSA card or FSA card

Make a Personalized Emergency Hospital Care Kit

Having to stay in a hospital is stressful and uncomfortable, and it can be even worse when you end up there unexpectedly. In order to keep yourself comfortable and sane, it's important to make sure you have some personal comforts to get you by.

The purpose of a hospital care kit is to act as a “go-bag” containing your emergency info folder plus anything else you might need to get by once you're in your hospital room. It's a quick way for you or a loved to grab all the basic supplies and entertainment you might need without any searching or delay.

Think of your hospital care kit like a mini travel bag that you can fill with the same types of things you might pack for a weekend away from home. In particular, consider items from the following major categories: toiletries & hygiene, clothes, medical equipment, and entertainment, and personal items that bring you comfort.

Start by choosing a bag that's small enough to grab and store easily, but big enough to hold a couple days worth of supplies (a duffel bag or gym bag will do). In order to conserve space, try to pack small, compact items; you could buy travel-sized toiletries, for example, or parse full-sized products into small baggies and containers.

Don't worry about packing for a long hospital stay; after all, you never really know how long it will be before you go home. It's better to keep your bag compact and pack just enough supplies to last until you can send someone out to fetch more.

To help you decide what to prioritize, take a moment to think about what it's like to be stuck in a hospital room, and then try to think of what little things might make it a little bit comfortable and easier to bear. The ideas that come to mind can help you narrow down your options and figure out what's most important to you.

Here are some general items you might consider including in your emergency hospital care kit:

Your emergency info folder:

• Put your emergency info folder in the same bag as your hospital care kit so everything you need for a hospital visit will all be in one place
• Make sure to keep the info up to date with any changes in your health, including changes in medication, dosage, or other treatments you use

A set of basic toiletries and personal hygiene necessities, including:

• Small bottles of shampoo, conditioner, & body wash
• A toothbrush, toothpaste, & mouthwash
• Deodorant
• A couple packages of travel tissues
• A small bottle of lotion
• Face cleansing wipes
• Chapstick
• Hand sanitizer

Comfortable, compact clothing, including:

• A couple of comfortable t-shirts
• A couple of comfortable pajama bottoms
• A few pairs of socks (ideally with non-slip bottoms)
• A few pairs of underwear
• A couple of comfortable bras (if applicable)
• A pair of slip-resistant flip flops
• Slippers

Entertainment and things to keep you busy, including:

• Books & magazines
• A compact game or set of cards
• Music & headphones
• Coloring books
• Paper and something to write or draw with
• Simple hobby supplies (e.g. for knitting, drawing, writing, etc.)
• Some spending cash (for vending machines, newpapers, etc.)
• A prepaid phone card (some hospitals do not allow cell phones)

Supplemental oxygen supplies (if you use oxygen), including:

• Oxygen mask or nasal cannula
• Humidifier bottle
• Any lubricants or lotions you normally use for comfort

Other personal items you might want to include:

• A notebook and pen for jotting down questions and notes
• An eye mask & earplugs for sleeping
• An extra phone charger & wall plug
• A soft blanket or bathrobe
• A refillable water bottle
• Photos, keepsakes, or other comfort items
• Sanitizing wipes
• Dry shampoo (for when bathing is difficult)
• Hair ties
• Tweezers
• A shaving razor
• Nail clippers
• Hair styling products and cosmetics

You should also keep in mind that, even