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uzanne Lachapelle had never been one to worry about her health. With a full-time job and a busy family life, the 43-year-old mother of four brushed aside concerns about the nagging cough she just couldn't seem to shake. But as she struggled to catch her breath one day after climbing a short flight of stairs, she knew it was time to see a doctor. Suzanne says the diagnosis of COPD came as a surprise.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease - COPD - is a disease that makes it difficult to move air into and out of your lungs. It is a disease that causes the airways of the lungs to be become inflamed or "obstructed" or blocked. The main symptom of COPD is shortness of breath accompanied by a cough or wheezing. The most common form of COPD is a combination of chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Both conditions make breathing difficult and cause breathlessness.

Today, more than 750,000 Canadians are estimated to be living with COPD. Hundreds of thousands more have COPD, but have not yet been diagnosed. While COPD affects both men and women, the disease is rising rapidly among middle-aged females, says Kenneth R. Chapman, a University of Toronto medical professor and a doctor at the Asthma and Airway Centre at Toronto Western Hospital. Data from the Public Health Agency of Canada shows that 4.8 per cent of Canadian women 35 or older suffer from COPD, compared with 4.3 per cent of men. "In the past, the typical patient in our COPD rehab program was an elderly male. Today, our typical patient is a woman in her late fifties or early sixties," says Dr. Chapman.

In a paper published in the June 2004 issue of Clinics in Chest Medicine, Dr. Chapman says that women may be more prone to developing COPD because of their smaller airway size. Women also tend to develop COPD at an earlier age than men and suffer more lung damage from smoking the same number of cigarettes as men.

In the vast majority of cases, smoking is the cause of COPD. About 15 to 20 per cent of smokers will develop COPD. Other risk factors include:

• Heredity
• Second-hand smoke
• Exposure to air pollution at work and in the environment
• A history of childhood respiratory infections

COPD is often called the silent disease because symptoms such as breathlessness and coughing often progress slowly. "Many people tend to shrug off the early symptoms of COPD and incorrectly attribute their breathlessness to being out of shape or aging," says Dr. Chapman. These early symptoms may not seem serious at first, but they can progress to the point where daily activities, such as walking, dressing, and even eating, cause extreme shortness of breath.

In Suzanne's case, fear and shame also kept her from seeking medical help. "I had a lot of guilt. I knew smoking was bad for my health, so I put off seeing the doctor." Eventually, Suzanne's symptoms became too overwhelming to ignore. "It felt like I was breathing through a straw," she recalls.

The good news about COPD is that it is almost completely preventable, and when caught early, symptoms can almost always be reduced. What's more, the earlier a healthcare professional detects COPD, the easier it is to treat.

While there are other causes of COPD, smoking is by far the major known risk factor. It is never too late to quit. Quitting smoking not only reduces your risk of developing COPD in the first place, but also helps to slow the progression of the disease in those who already have it.

Dr. Chapman recommends that people with a smoking history of 15 years or more should ask their doctor to perform a spirometry test. Spirometry is a quick, simple breathing test that measures the flow of air into and out of your lungs.

It has been seven years since Suzanne was first diagnosed with COPD, but she says she's never felt better. Although learning that she had a chronic disease was frightening at first, she says that seeking medical treatment and most important, quitting smoking have made a huge improvement in her health and sense of well-being. "I'm happier now than I've ever been. There's a whole world out there with so many things to see and places to go - I'm excited about my life again."

For more information on COPD, please visit BreathWorks: Help for People with COPD from The Lung Association.