Abstract
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an illness associated with intersectional poverty and stigma in old age; people with COPD are susceptible to anxiety, loneliness and isolation. People with COPD who contract COVID-19 are at high risk of serious complications, intensive medical needs and death and are, therefore, required to socially distance particularly assiduously. This paper offers an embodied phenomenological analysis of the emerging theoretical literature exploring the impact of social distancing upon people with COPD. Firstly, people with COPD are aware of how respiratory illness feels, are anxious about COVID-19 and afraid of being denied care. Future research might consider how people with COPD may be susceptible to “coronaphobia” and mental health consequences of the pandemic. Secondly, COPD tends to affect older people within the most intersectionally marginalised socioeconomic groups. Future research should remain mindful that people with COPD may be among the most lonely and least able to access health and social care services online than others. Thirdly, pandemics are known to intensify pre-existing social stigmas. Researchers and practitioners alike should be conscious that people with COPD may become increasingly stigmatised, especially those from intersectionally disadvantaged minorities.
Highlights
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is diagnosis which encompasses chronic bronchitis and emphysema, sometimes with elements of bronchiectasis and refractory asthma (Vestbo et al 2013)
In order to inform and to direct the emergence of such research studies, this paper offers an overview of recent philosophical and theoretical innovations within the field of embodied phenomenology exploring the existential meanings of social distancing (Carel et al 2020; Dolezal 2020; Goli 2020; Rossolatos 2020; Vallee 2020)
This paper offers a brief overview of emerging phenomenological analyses of social distancing before identifying three specific challenges which people with COPD may encounter
Summary
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is diagnosis which encompasses chronic bronchitis and emphysema, sometimes with elements of bronchiectasis and refractory asthma (Vestbo et al 2013). People with COPD often feel more breathless and more disabled by their breathlessness than measures of their lung function might predict, something that is generally attributed to the difficulties with interoceptive awareness which often accompany chronic illness (Macnaughton 2020) This breathlessness is frequently accompanied by anxiety, social isolation and loneliness; these arise both as a consequence of the stress of managing breathlessness itself and as a response to the socioeconomic isolation, exclusion and stigmatisation which co-exist with the illness (Williams and Carel 2018). This paper offers a brief overview of emerging phenomenological analyses of social distancing before identifying three specific challenges which people with COPD may encounter. This is not an empirical review but instead an exploratory and largely polemical article, which draws upon Merleau-Ponty’s (1968) embodied phenomenology to make sense of what social distancing means for vulnerable bodies in a pandemic. In its speculation and polemic, this article aims to inspire and to inform future research into the COVID-era experiences of people in the UK with COPD
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