Learning Histories - Lung Center

In many ways, the American Lung Association of Indiana Lung Center is still gasping for air. A joint project of the American Lung Association of Indiana (ALA-I) and Memorial Hospital of South Bend, the program is a pilot for the state. Opened in the fall of 1998, it’s planners unanimously agree that more work lies ahead than behind them. Yet, looking to past ALA-I Lung Center accomplishments does provide a framework for present and future challenges.

"It started about two years ago, when we recognized that we were having a hard time as an organization really impacting the lives of people who have asthma," says Dick Beall, Executive Director of the American Lung Association, Region I, "Someone asked if there wasn’t a way that we could really get on top of this problem. You know there are a lot of people who have asthma," he continues emphatically, "It’s increasing in incidence every year. The World Health Organization sees it as a world-wide epidemic. And, for the most part, patients are not necessarily managing themselves well."

Indeed, in Indiana alone over 320, 000 people suffer from asthma (American Lung Association). One-third of those are children. Three times that many residents deal with some sort of lung disease. Many of us look to statistics like these to give us an idea of the impact of lung disease in our communities, but the numbers themselves can’t provide us with an idea of what lung disease sufferers truly experience.

Dick Beall can. With a box of cocktail straws in hand, he might offer an office visitor an experience that simulates some of the effects of lung disease. Encouraging you to close your mouth tightly around the straw, plug your nose, and try to breath, he watches and says "Now, that’s a very mild case."

"People with asthma," he elaborates, "even if they’re doing well and feel good, still carry a degree of inflammation in their bronchial tubes. If you limp because you hurt your foot, you notice the limp for a couple of days -- but after a couple of years you’ve become adjusted to limping. So, if you have trouble breathing, you notice it right away. But after a few years you adjust. You walk a little slower, you stoop a little bit more. If you’re a kid, you don’t got out for sports, you don’t play outside, you watch a lot of TV. You become a different kind of person. So, for the severe episodes, [asthma sufferers] pop into the emergency rooms, or they pop into their doctors’ offices. They’re treated on an emergency basis and they feel better, but even when they feel better they’re not really what a normal breather is, but they get used to it...There’s a difference between chronic and acute. When you have cancer, you act quickly because there is incredible urgency to do something today. With chronic diseases people just live a very low quality of life."

**The Facts on:**
Asthma Fourteen people die daily because of their asthma. Nearly 15 million Americans now have asthma. The number of new asthma cases and asthma-related deaths has increased 40% between 1982 and 1994. From the American Lung Association.	Tobacco 6,200 children die each year in the United States due to exposure to tobacco smoke. Indiana ranks second highest in smoking among the 50 states. Smoking kills approximately 27 Hoosiers each day.	COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and Lung Cancer Nearly 16 million Americans are estimated to suffer from chronic COPD, such as emphysema or chronic bronchitis. Lung cancer is now the number one cancer in men and women. Cigarette smoking is responsible for an estimated 87% of lung cancer cases.

The ALA -I Lung Center was created with the idea of improving life quality for lung disease sufferers in mind. Dick says that when asthma patients have an "episode" -- a severe, sometimes life-threatening attack, they are likely to seek emergency medical services and then return home once they feel better. "What we try to do is to stop these episodes from even happening."

The Center’s beginning stemmed from an already established connection between the American Lung Association of Indiana and Memorial Hospital. Pat Wise, RRT, Director of Pulmonary Services at Memorial Hospital was a long-time supporter and Board member of the American Lung Association. As Dick was formulating the Lung Center idea, Pat was a person he sought out for input. "Dick had a vision of educational opportunity and partnership with the hospital," says Pat.

The vision has become a reality with the development of the American Lung Association of Indiana Lung Center, in partnership with Memorial Hospital. A building and staff have been devoted to the Center, and programs are in place. Yet, as the program’s developers have realized -- this is just the beginning.