New Spelling for COPD – HOPE

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is slowly advancing in leading cause of death in the US and most recently pushed to the third place spot when Strokes dropped back to fourth leading cause of death in the US.

We have WALKS for research dollars – Cancer – Heart – Arthritis – all worthy causes – but no WALKS or RUNS for COPD.

Well – a new study results seem to prove that some patients with COPD can stabilize and some get better – this is HUGE, GUYS!  The first time I have read anything giving hope to a COPDer in terms of some of us helped beyond learning what we can do to help ourselves…and points out what I love about a teaching hospital such as the University of Washington Medical Center.  The professors teach their medical students to have open minds to the possibilities and now a researcher from …

“… University of Nebraska Medical Center scientist worked on the study, analyzing the results described in an article this month in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.

“This study, I think, will really result in a change in attitude toward COPD,” said Dr. Stephen Rennard, a professor of medicine at UNMC.

Physicians and patients for many years have believed that COPD inevitably worsened. A landmark study in Great Britain in the 1970s appeared to confirm this notion.

The disease does worsen for many. But a study of 2,163 patients in 50 clinics and universities, including UNMC and Creighton, showed that some didn’t worsen over three years. Some, in fact, got better.

Rennard said this gives reason for hope among lung specialists and patients, and it possibly will lead to more aggressive treatment.

The Rev. Adam Ryan, a Catholic priest at Conception Abbey in northwest Missouri, called the study’s findings “very good news for me.”

Ryan, 56, said he is a lucky COPD patient whose disease hasn’t worsened. Diagnosed with emphysema in 1991, he eventually stopped smoking, improved his diet and started exercising. He takes three medicines daily for his COPD…. Rennard said finding the reasons for stabilization or improvement, and what treatments seem to work, weren’t part of the study. That research remains to be done.

He said the study also found that those with moderate COPD seem to deteriorate more rapidly than those with severe disease. In the past, he said, doctors tended to direct treatments toward those with severe illness and less to those who were moderately ill with COPD. This, too, may have been a mistake, Rennard said.”

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110926/LIVEWELL01/709269970/1161

World COPD Day is Wednesday, 16 November 2011 and this year I am going to WALK/RIDE FOR COPD!

I’ve invited the governor to join in. – I hope she does.  She would be welcome to carry my COPD cycling safety flag.  My husband, Chuck, made it and noted Rosemaler and teacher, Lois Clauson of Bremerton painted it.

These legs were made for walking and triking.

World COPD Day, Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Thanks for reading… Sharon O’Hara