A study by a city doctor has found a high prevalence — almost 44% — of breathlessness among its respondents. The study published in ‘PLOS Global Public Health’, said almost 4% of the respondents had experienced most severe breathlessness that impaired their day-to-day life.
The study’s author, pulmonologist Dr Sujeet Rajan, said statistically this could be extrapolated to mean that roughly 626 million people across India live with breathlessness of some degree of intensity and 52 million people living with such debilitating breathlessness that they are housebound or have difficulty dressing or undressing because of it.
Dr Rajan, who consults at Bombay Hospital and Bhatia Hospital in south Mumbai, said, We found that people with severe breathlessness reported it less often because they had adapted their life around their breathlessness. They are now forgoing activity that they could do easily.
According to the study, breathlessness was mostly attributed to poor nutrition (28%), lung conditions, excluding tuberculosis (17%) or anaemia (13%).
Breathlessness or dyspnea is a well-recognised medical problem, but it’s usually associated with severe lung disease. It was one of the main symptoms seen during the Covid pandemic.
For the PLOS study, Dr Rajan and his co-researchers conducted an online survey of over 3,000 adults across rural (59%) and urban residents. The average age of the respondents was 38 years, and 57% were male, and 33% had completed 12th grade.
Most people reporting breathlessness (81%) indicated the symptom had adversely affected their normal activities, said the doctor.
Dr Rajan said, apart from medicines, people should be active. The moment deconditioning of muscles occurs due to sedentary lifestyle, the patient feels walking is a huge effort. Hence, muscle strengthening exercises are critical for everyone over 50 years of age, he added.
However, a chest physician who wanted to remain anonymous said that the findings cannot be extrapolated to India. It cannot be considered representative of India because it was conducted only in English and over email, said the doctor.
