LAUSR

People with common chronic cardiorespiratory conditions can live with chronic breathlessness for years [1]. Disabling chronic breathlessness, persisting despite optimum treatment of the underlying cause [2], is experienced by almost all patients with advanced lung disease, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) [3], and carries a significant emotional, social, health and economic load. Intimately related to physical activity, chronic breathlessness reduces the ability to carry out activities of daily living [4] and restricts the role in the family, workplace or wider society [5]. These consequences, with additional frightening severe episodes of breathless crises, lead not only to acute emotional responses that not only widely activate a multitude of brain regions [6], but also promote the insidious development of depression, anxiety and panic, and a reduction in physical and mental quality of life proportionate with the severity of breathlessness [7]. Education and training for caregivers of breathless patients is crucially important http://ow.ly/U52C30iTCpW