How A Portable Oxygen Concentrator May Improve the Lifestyle of a COPD Patient
One way to get supplemental oxygen is through an oxygen tank usually positioned beside hospital beds or your own bed at home. Most patients, though, although suffering the effects of COPD, are not yet so incapacitated to allow themselves to be attached to their bed so many hours in a day.
“The whole purpose is to basically improve your lifestyle. Because a portable oxygen concentrator may benefit copd patients like me, I’m not afraid to get back to some of the things I love doing, whether it be a hobby or an outing, to enjoy your kids and grandkids, that kind of thing.” – COPD patient
New technology has made it possible for patients with COPD and other lung diseases or disorders to carry their oxygen around in shoulder bags or backpacks.
Because a portable oxygen concentrator may benefit COPD sufferers, the fact that POCs are now light and small enough to carry around are the best thing that could happen to supplemental oxygen. You can carry them anywhere, charge them up in your car, and even bring them on planes and cruises.
In most cases, supplemental oxygen is a chronic therapy — used over a long term. That means patients would need to get used to using the POC most hours and most days because, as what all the studies would indicate, that’s how you get the long term benefit.