Respiratory News Nurses at the Salem, Virginia Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center began ensuring their patients brushed their teeth twice a day. This simple act dramatically reduced the number of cases of hospital-acquired pneumonia by 90 percent (people were not on a ventilator). Calling the program Project HAPPEN (Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia Prevention by Engaging…
Personal Hygiene and COPD COPD.net is an Internet site sponsored by Health Union as a place to find information, support and friendship with others who cope with COPD. Recent posts offered tips on making our personal hygiene routines a bit easier. •a Tveo lots of energy, after a shower or bath, use…
World COPD Day, November 21 The Global Initiative for Chronic Ob- structive Lung Disease – otherwise known as GOLD – is an organization striving to improve the diagnosis, prevention and management of COPD around the world. Visit their web site at www.goldcopd.org to learn of their recommendations on how to treat your lung…
Sharing the Health! The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has declined to approve GlaxoSmithKline’s lung drug, Nucala. The drug would be used as a maintenance treatment for the reduction of exacerbations in those with COPD, but the FDA wanted more documentation. However, the FDA has approved Teva Pharmaceuticals to market the first generic…
The Ryan Report Home Oxygen Guru – The HO2G Pen The fall season is again upon us. I hope you made it through these hot months healthy and happy. This issue we’ll be covering a new Portable Oxygen Concentrator (POC) that is hitting the market, ideas for reducing tubing kink and coil, and…
Fibrosis File The paperback book, Breathing Should Never Be Hard Work: One Man’s Journey with Id- iopathic Pulmonary Fi- brosis, is now available at www.amazon.com Robert Davidson was diagnosed with IPF in October 2007 after having difficulties with the fitness test nec- essary to be a soccer referee. He tells his journey with…
Time to Get Your Annual Flu Shot! According to the Centers for Disease Control, last year’s flu season was the worst since 2009. Activity began to increase in November, reaching an extended period of high activity during January and February and remained elevated through the end of March. The percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia…
Ask Mark … Note: We would like to sincerely apologize for printing the wrong sequence of medication chart in our last issue! The outdated chart caused confusion and we regret the error. Hopefully, this will clear things up. Mark Mangus and Dr. Noah Greenspan, Director of Ultimate Pulmonary Wellness in New York City,…
Empty Pill Bottles Rather than throw away your empty pill bottles, a group called Matthew 25: Minis- tries (Internet site: earth911.com/inspire/diy/ reuse-pill-bottles) will donate them to people that don’t have the luxury of the sturdy con- tainers. More than half of Americans take two prescription drugs leaving our landfills with a lot of…
Engineered Pig Lung Tranplant ‘A Success’ Researchers report lab-grown lungs have been successfully transplanted into pigs with no apparent medical complication for months after the procedure. This line of research on bioengineered lungs could eventually lead to more options for people who need a lung transplant, according to the team at the University of Texas…