Lung Disease Patients know that ordinary life at home can pose physical problems. FLASS is addressing this article to patients with any type of chronic lung disease.
However, we are especially sending it to patients who have a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD.)
We know lung disease patients want to live their lives among the personal comfort and warm memories of home. They intensely dislike the confines of the hospital or nursing homes.
Thus, our topic today will bring you suggestions for creating a better environment for chronic lung disease patients who live at home. We can’t bring you all our favorite hints in this space. However, we can bring you eight of our top suggestions.
Lung Disease and Living at Home
Coping with Lung Disease at Home Requires Special ingredients for Patient Comfort.
If your doctor recently diagnosed you with COPD, we know you are looking for any kind of hints to help you feel your best. We also know you want to avoid hospital stays.
And we feel you wonder how to manage your home environment to prevent breathlessness and exhaustion whenever possible.
Therefore, today’s topic brings you practical suggestions to help you transform your home into your best environment.
First and Foremost: A New Rule for Friends and Family
Not all cases of COPD are the result of smoking. However, be aware that cigarette smoke can cause you to have sudden flare-ups. You must establish a smoke-free home. No first or secondhand smoke for you!
Experts at Healthline state, “Be mindful of thirdhand smoke, too. This refers to residual smoke left behind after a person smokes.”
Likewise, they add “So even if someone doesn’t smoke around you, the scent of smoke on their clothes can make your symptoms worse.”
Our Second Suggestion: New Bathroom Décor—The Shower Chair
You might not be aware that showering can steal a great deal of your energy. Standing, scrubbing, and hair-washing can exhaust the COPD patient.
With a shower chair, you can prevent exhaustion and avoid repetitive bending. Oh, we know it will feel strange at first. However, you will quickly learn to enjoy the relaxing, effortless, and safer way to cleanliness. We don’t want you to get injured in a slippery shower situation.
3. Another Bathroom Trick for Lung Disease Patients: A Fan
The Comfort of Home is an Important Part of Lung Patient’s Therapy.
Did you know shower steam increases the humidity level in the bathroom? “This can also exacerbate COPD, triggering coughing and shortness of breath.”
Thus, FLASS suggests you shower in a well-ventilated bathroom. Some showers allow you to shower with the door to the room open. Alternatively, crack a window or simply turn on the exhaust fan.
You can even, “…place a portable fan in the bathroom while showering to reduce humidity and ventilate the room.”
4. Beware of Carpeting!
Be aware that carpet traps pet dander, dust, and other allergens. These are triggers for any lung disease patient.
We’re sad to say that carpeting should be a thing of the past. Hardwood or tile floors will give you a cleaner home.
If you have COPD, asthma, or chronic lung disease, carpets cannot be your friend. However, if you must keep carpets in your home, at least find a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter.
5. Your New Best Friend: The Air Purifier
Patients with lung disease will really appreciate today’s technologically advanced air purifiers. Allergens, pollutants, and irritants all just disappear when confronted by HEPA filters.
We promise a good air purifier can be your best investment for breathing comfort at home. Just remember to keep changing your filters often.
6. Lung Disease Patients and Air Ducts
In Spite of Lung Disease, Many Patients Find Home is Their Happiest Environment.
Many people can neglect cleaning air ducts in their homes. However, lung disease patients do not have that luxury.
It is extremely important for all chronic lung disease patients to have professional duct cleaning once a year.
Why are clean ducts so important? This is because your symptoms worsen if undetected mold, dust, and mildew lurk in your ducts.
Just mark your calendar now because dirty ducts can exacerbate the symptoms of every known lung disease.
So, we implore you to find a way to schedule an air conditioning inspection for mold. Likewise, schedule a professional to check out the mildew that could be living in your ductwork.
These inspections and the elimination of mold, dust, and mildew will give lung disease patients “cleaner air and a more breathable environment.” At FLASS, we believe that means a higher quality of life, especially for COPD patients.
7. Leaving Steps for Better Health, Not Climbing Them
This home improvement is difficult. Stairs and lung disease are incompatible. Eventually, you will have to explore options for the steps.
On the one hand, you might be surprised at the affordability of stairlifts. On the other hand, could you convert a downstairs room into your bedroom?
Eventually, you might even have to move to a one-level home. For the lung disease patient, climbing stairs every day can lead to breathlessness, exhaustion, coughing, and dangerous falls.
8. Today’s Lung Disease Patient Can Walk “ON” Air
If your doctor prescribes oxygen therapy, be careful about tripping over a cord as you go room to room. Currently, small portable tanks are available. They have given many lung disease patients new freedom.
To put it briefly, “Using a portable oxygen tank also makes it easier to travel outside the house, giving you independence and improving your quality of life.”
We don’t mean to sound like a commercial. However, you should know that some products offer life-changing benefits from new medical technology.
Terrific Take-Aways from the Big FLASS Household Hints for lung disease patients.
A Few Tips and Tricks Make Homes Safe For Lung Disease Patients.
Patients who live with lung disease find challenges in the most basic physical activities. We believe patients with mild to moderate but chronic lung disease can manage higher-quality lives if they use the above household hints to modify their environment.
Being surrounded by loved ones in a comfortable space full of memories is undoubtedly the best healing space for patients. Our big 8 FLASS hints can help any home and give you or your loved one a higher quality of life.
Breath is Beautiful
Whether they are healthy or diseased, you might say lungs need space to breathe. Tailor the details and décor of your home to meet the needs of your lungs. Start with our big 8 FLASS hints for your house.
Comparably, people are happiest at home, not in an institution. The choice to live at home affects their healing and the length of their life.