{"id":1271,"date":"2015-12-02T01:56:50","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T01:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=1271"},"modified":"2015-12-02T01:56:50","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T01:56:50","slug":"gsk-launches-maketimefordad-awareness-campaign-for-copd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/gsk-launches-maketimefordad-awareness-campaign-for-copd\/","title":{"rendered":"GSK launches #MakeTimeForDad awareness campaign for COPD"},"content":{"rendered":"

GSK and the Philippine College of Chest Physicians (PCCP) initiated a campaign called #MakeTimeForDad as part of the commemoration of World COPD Day.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"WCD2015\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The campaign encourages family members to upload 30-second videos on Facebook and Instagram, stating a list of things they want to do or wish they could have done with their fathers. This serves as a reminder for them to act now if they feel that their loved ones are at risk for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and value each moment they spend with them.<\/p>\n

COPD, a progressive lung ailment that makes breathing difficult and could invariably lead to death, is said to affect millions of Filipinos who remain undiagnosed with the sickness. The prevalence rate of the illness in the Philippines is 14% of the population, of which only two percent are being diagnosed.<\/p>\n

Often caused by heavy cigarette smoking, with 80% to 90% of cases due to this habit, the disease is a big concern in the Philippines where there are 17.3-million adult smokers. Other causes of COPD include occupational dusts, whether organic or inorganic, exposures to outdoor as well as indoor air pollution, and other genetic factors.<\/p>\n

According to Dr. Bernice Ong-Dela Cruz of Chinese General Hospital\u2019s Internal Medicine-Pulmonary and Critical Care, COPD is the seventh leading cause of death in the Philippines, with symptoms that include chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and hard to breathe or shortness of breath. The illness is projected to be the third leading cause of death by 2020.<\/p>\n

COPD is often diagnosed among persons in their 50s and 60s. These diagnoses, however, are relatively late as the disease can begin in their 40s. Medical checkup is thereby important particularly in cases where a person has the disease without knowing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not make the mistake of a lot of patients who usually see their doctors when they are already in the later stages of COPD. It is easy to confuse COPD with other conditions such as smoker\u2019s cough and shortness of breath due to ageing but if your father is a smoker and he begins to experience coughing with phlegm and an unusual breathing pattern, consult a doctor. He may be asked to get a spirometry exam to diagnose COPD,\u201d said\u00a0Dr. Gio Barangan, GSK\u2019s Medical Director.<\/p>\n

Although the ailment is not contagious, it has no cure. It can also make patients unproductive and even burdensome.<\/p>\n

COPD patients who are not undergoing diagnosis can worsen the disease in the long run.<\/p>\n

Ong-Dela Cruz said that underdiagnosis is caused by the lack of health awareness on COPD and its risk factors, low availability of spirometer, and the non-affordable cost of COPD treatment.<\/p>\n

Spirometry is a simple breathing test that gauges how much and how quickly air moves out of the lungs. It measures the lung function in patients and determines the progression of the disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf COPD is detected early, patients will have fewer limitations on their activity,\u201d said Barangan.<\/p>\n

\"At<\/a>

At the observance of World COPD Day 2015 (from left): Nikko Briguera, Nica Eala, Janina Dizon, Dr. Bernice Ong, Epy Quizon, Dr. Patrick Moral, Dr. Tim Trinidad, and Jonnahs Singian<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GSK and the Philippine College of Chest Physicians (PCCP) initiated a campaign called #MakeTimeForDad as part of the commemoration of World COPD Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":1272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,36,4,35],"tags":[764,767,766,19,20,765],"class_list":["post-1271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fitness","category-health-wellness-2","category-newsmakers","category-wellness-2","tag-maketimefordad","tag-chronic-obstructive-pulmonary-disease","tag-copd","tag-health","tag-wellness","tag-world-copd-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1274,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions\/1274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}