Yesterday was World COPD Day, which aims to raise awareness about chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Kettering Hospital's Rocket team supports people with COPD and has urged people to be aware of the symptoms so they can get treatment and improve their health.

Jean Green, 65, of Kettering, was diagnosed with emphysema seven years ago after living with what she thought was asthma.

She is on oxygen 18 hours a day and uses four inhalers.

She said: "The Rocket team are a wonderful bunch of people. They come to my rescue whenever I get a chest infection.

"My advice to people who are constantly suffering from things like chest infections is to get help. It can be so easily passed off as asthma."

Simon Lee is the manager of the Rocket outreach team, which carries out 400 home visits each month to people in north Northamptonshire who suffer from the disease.

He said: "Many people, particularly smokers, may start feeling progressively more breathless as the years go by but just put it down to their age and smoking.

"But if you also have any of these additional symptoms – a chronic cough, excess production of phlegm or frequent winter bronchitis or a wheezy chest – you may have the early signs of COPD."

He said people who ignore these symptoms can end up with a poorer quality of life because they find walking difficult, feel isolated, anxious and depressed and can even need emergency admission to hospital if their illness suddenly gets worse.

Mr Lee added: "The good news is that COPD is now well understood and there is a wide range of treatments available to people which help to significantly reduce symptoms, slow down the progress of the illness, help people become more active and generally make them feel better."

For more advice contact your GP or visit www.goldcopd.com.