Shortness of breath, wheezing, and coughing are symptoms experienced by both asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD patients. Things such as viral infections and exposure to tobacco smoke, environmental pollution, indoor air pollution, and occupational pollution can all cause your asthma or COPD exacerbations.

A great deal of information has been written about asthma. It is known that this common and chronic disorder affects approximately eight to 10 percent of the U.S. population. Of this number, some five to 10 percent of these patients have a severe form of the disease that fails to respond to normal therapeutic interventions.

CAIRE, the parent company of SeQual, has developed a mobile app available on the iOS App Store to be used with the SeQual Eclipse 5 and SeQual eQuinox portable oxygen concentrators.

This simple and easy to use app will help you determine your expected battery life based on your flow rate and your breathing rate. It will also determine your pulse flow equivalent when you are using continuous flow.

This app can make your life easier by taking some of the planning out of your day and giving you peace of mind.

As of right now this app is only available for the iPhone, iPod, and iPad, but CAIRE expects to have an Android app up and running by the end of the year.

For those of you without an iPhone, iPad, or iPod CAIRE is putting the finishing touches on their desktop version for you to access from your home computer or laptop. Once the desktop version is completed we will let you know!

There are many lifestyle changes that are in order upon the diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and one of the most important changes you can make is your diet. Did you know that as a COPD patient you can require up to 10 times more calories compared to a person without COPD, this is because your body with COPD burns excessive amounts of energy breathing. Though it may be needed to consume up to 10 times more calories, it is extremely important that you monitor what you eat because what you eat can directly impact your symptoms. COPD friendly food groups include veggies, fruits, lean meats, fish, and nuts, but the type of foods that worsen COPD symptoms are:

Part of eating a healthy diet is eating a proper amount of dairy products, whether that is from cheese or milk, it is detrimental that in addition to meat, fruits, veggies, and nuts, that you have an adequate amount of dairy in your regular diet.

These food groups are especially important in patients that suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD),  because food is the bodies energy source.

COPD patients have an increased difficulty of breathing which requires more energy while putting added strain on the lungs, and a poor diet can lead to weight loss which can further weaken the muscles used to breathe.