A good primer on a frightening illness. As someone with a family member who's been dealing with COPD for over 15 years, I found it enlightening and would recommend it to others who want to know more about what victims should be doing to manage the disease. I would think, also, that those diagnosed with the disease might find it an useful addition to their libraries not only for ideas about personal strategies as to disease management but also to lend to family members and friends who want to know more about COPD. ( )

This book is a great gift for people who have been recently been diagnosed with COPD or for people who are in denial that they have COPD. I recently gave this book to my mother who has COPD & just had a recent bout with pneumonia. I am especially hopeful that this book will help her stop smoking.

The book is wonderful. I am an RT student and this book was really helpful for examination I had. Anyone living with this condition should have a copy. Basic book and does a good job at explaining the details and what should be done to live with COPD. ( )

Good basic primer organized in a practical guide with easy access to specific details like common drugs used for treatment. The book spans the "life" of COPD from questions about what a diagnosis of COPD means, treatment, personal actions, and working with health care providers. This book emphasizes LIVING with COPD and not just coping. ( )

Positive Options for Living with COPD, by Teri Allen, is a book I really wish I had read 10 years ago. My father just died last month after 10 years of painful struggle with COPD. After reading this book the first thing I did was go to an allergist to get tested for AAT deficiency, which my father had, to find out if I was genetically programmed to get this disease early. I am so grateful the test was negative, but if it had been positive, reading this book informed me that I could have had medical treatment to continue in good health.
This book has so much essential information about a disease that is so terrible, and yet about which little information has been generally available. My father saw doctors all those years and yet none of them every suggested half of the treatments that are written about here. A few of the things I already knew and tried to get my father to do, but he was of the generation who would listen to the guy in the white coat and not his daughter.

I don’t mean to make this review too maudlin, because it was time for my father to go, and I am at peace with his death, and grateful that his suffering is over. I wish I could have read this book earlier, but I am very glad to have read it now. Because I read it, I found out about the genetic test, and don’t have to worry that I will develop this automatically. I now know that I still need to be careful about monitoring my pulmonary function because of years of asthma and allergies, but I feel empowered to know the things I can do to prevent COPD, and improve my life if I should ever develop it because of childhood exposure to second-hand smoke. I am also thrilled to find out that I can do a lot to ensure my children’s life long good health. My aunt on my father’s side also has COPD, and I am sending her this book because now I know that even after a person has the disease, there are a lot of positive things you can do to make your life much better. ( )