On 19th October, EFA Member RESPIRA hosted a webinar to discuss the various challenges faced by Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients in Portugal. The webinar, titled “Let's Talk About Lung Health”, discussed measures for COPD patients to protect themselves against the coronavirus, as well as various factors which impact lung health and can lead to a COPD diagnosis. These topics included tobacco, environmental pollution, as well as exposure to toxic environments such as through professional activity and in closed and unventilated environments.
The webinar also presented the Lung Life initiative, an online platform to increase awareness of lung health among patients to improve dialogue with healthcare providers. The platform contains two tools for patients: one to calculate the age of their lungs and another to help manage their COPD and quality of life.
Currently, around 700-800,000 people live with COPD in Portugal. However, this may even be a modest estimate due to COPD being a hugely underdiagnosed disease. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the upcoming winter months, have also been of high concern for COPD patients. Therefore, the webinar was designed to inform them with up-to-date information regarding caring for COPD as well as prevention measures.
Find out more about RESPIRA’s work and the webinar here.