A baobab is something you will never, never be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads over the entire planet.
Why STOP?
I ask the indulgence of the children for dedicating this course to grown-ups. I have a serious reason: those are grown-ups who come across all kind of health problems — their own and somebody else’s, only because those problems weren’t prevented before. I dedicate this course to doctors…
Imagine, a patient, a young and «healthy» smoker in his early 45. He has a cough, but no, for God’s sake, he does not complain… No matter that he’s getting tired fast and somewhat breathless… However, the doctor knew — he was a wise doctor, he had read the national and international guidelines, he knew how important is to prevent all kind of disorders, and preferably, before they appear in this young smoker.
He was a reasonable doctor; he found out very quickly that there are already airways disorders, and they have occurred long before the smoker could even think of them.
The doctor found out that his patient had started smoking already at school, well, together with others, and that as a child, this time alone, he had cold and flue very often, nearly every winter, sometimes — several per winter…
His paediatrician used to say: «Nothing strange, the baby was born underweight, and always grew slowly».
O, Gods! Why?! Maybe because his mother already indulged in smoking being pregnant, and afterwards… Or maybe because his father used to smoke in their poorly ventilated room, though he himself suffered with «lungs» and coughed a lot…
So, where does Her Majesty Prevention start?
I ask the indulgence of fathers of Pulmonology, but if you start preventing the disease in 45 years old «young smoker» you may miss the beginning of the disease. Particularly, if your patient had a father who coughed and mother who smoked, and he himself was frequently sick and already smoked at school.
One of the topics for future, GOLD recognised the necessity «to identify the ’susceptible’ smoker». Let’s make closer the future. Let’s start right away!
I do not much like to take the tone of a moralist. But the danger of the baobabs is so little understood…, that for once I am breaking through my reserve. «Children,» I say plainly, «watch out for the baobabs!»
STOP: What does it mean?
STOP: Stepwise Target group Oriented Prevention is a conceptual model of integrated identification and intervention strategy for high-risk groups for COPD prevention.
Actually, each of the STOP’s step is a model of small preventive program in different target groups and on different stages of the life: started from prenatal period and to the healthy elderly, where the determinants are not transformed into the disease.
STOP is a tool for recognising the seeds of the baobabs, oh, pardon, COPD, and get rid of them, before they spread over the entire planet and before it is too late…
STOP strategy is a step towards improvement in COPD prevention, by shifting the focus from the group of a focus symptomatic smokers aged ’45+ years to much earlier and preventable stages of the disease, i.e. from disease treatment to risk management.