November is Pulmonary Hypertension Awareness month, and this year the Pulmonary Hypertension Association (PHA) has launched a special, nation-wide campaign to raise awareness for the disease called The Right Heart.
Pulmonary hypertension is a general term that refers to high blood pressure in the lungs due to any cause. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a chronic and progressive form of hypertension. It causes the arteries in the lungs to thicken or stiffen over time. Symptoms include shortness of breath, dizziness, fatigue, and chest pain.
Since many of those symptoms are nonspecific, the PHA argues, it can take patients a long time before they realize they have something more serious than another disease, like asthma. This often leads to them being in a later stage of the disease by the time they are finally diagnosed.
This is why The Right Heart campaign’s goals are to educate people about pulmonary hypertension. They also want to show how individuals of all ages diagnosed with it can fight back against the disease “through PHA’s advocacy, support, education and fundraising programs.” Hopefully, the more the public knows about pulmonary hypertension’s symptoms and associated diseases, the sooner the disease can be diagnosed.
The campaign will also feature stories about pulmonary patients of all ages and how they are living life to the fullest, despite their condition.
Ads for the campaign and the PHA’s other outreach for pulmonary hypertension awareness, branded with the hashtag #Heart2CurePH, will be playing in CVS stores throughout the country, as well as on TV and radio stations. There will also be Facebook Live events and other webinars held throughout the month.
If you’d like to learn more about The Right Heart campaign, click here.
