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Dr. Howard Hindin

From the Director: Take Charge of Your Health!

Updated: Nov 28, 2021


This week marks one year since the pandemic shut us down and ‎changed our lives. Now one year later, new cases, ‎hospitalizations, and deaths are down; and we have three ‎approved vaccines. Spring is in the air, buds are on the trees and ‎a sense of hope is growing.‎


By summer, we may be socializing in person with family and ‎friends, shopping in stores and dining in restaurants. By fall, we ‎may be attending large in-person meetings and events. By winter, ‎the pandemic may no longer be on the front page of newspapers, ‎home page of websites and the breaking news stories on TV. We ‎may have weathered the storm and life will again gradually return ‎to the way it was. However, it will be a missed opportunity if we ‎don’t learn valuable lessons from COVID. ‎


While the COVID pandemic may leave us, the pandemic of ‎chronic disease, poor performance, and children with learning and ‎behavioral problems will remain, continuing to ravage our society.‎


I believe the most important lesson of COVID is we must all “take ‎charge of our health”. Most of us would not buy a car or a ‎household appliance without research and asking far more ‎questions than we do when we are presented with care for a ‎health problem.‎


We have learned from COVID that those who are elderly, obese, ‎diabetic, afflicted by heart disease and unmodulated immune ‎systems have more severe symptoms and more frequently die.‎


These are the same groups who have had existing risk factors for ‎years, possibly since childhood. Inadequate diets, lack of ‎exercise, poor stress management and unrecognized airway / ‎sleep problems start early in life and even before birth. These ‎risks work separately and together to destroy health, interfere with ‎growth and development and rob us of our potential. ‎


The good news is that these risks can be identified, reduced and ‎eliminated. The Foundation was created to help - to help you ‎take charge of your health. ‎


Are you a healthcare provider? Do you know the word doctor ‎comes from the Latin verb, docēre, to teach. Now is the time to be ‎a teacher to your patients and your community. Use the ‎information from the Foundation as your teaching tools. There are ‎screening forms and other information on the Foundation website ‎‎(airwayhealth.org). Make patients aware of the Foundation. They ‎will thank you. Be a teacher and a healer. Provide more and ‎better care. ‎


Are you a healthcare consumer? Use the information on the ‎website to learn the risk factors of an airway problem, what you ‎can do, and where you can go for care. Become more informed ‎and know what questions to ask.‎


You might say, I am not a doctor, how can I screen for an airway ‎problem? Think about this: if anyone can learn CPR to save a life, ‎then anyone can learn to recognize the ever-present signs of an ‎airway problem - even in the very young. If recognized in ‎children, comprehensive care can treat the problem and change a ‎negative outcome to a positive one. ‎


The Foundation believes this is the moment for all of us to invest ‎time and energy to change our health. We are changing to assist ‎you. In the coming months we will be:‎


‎•‎ Revamping our website ‎

‎•‎ Offering Town Hall meetings to provide the public with ‎needed information and answer questions

‎•‎ Adding more content to allow for better screening for all

‎•‎ Starting a campaign to increase the number of airway ‎advocate practitioners in the directory

‎•‎ Planning our 2021 O2 Day for Global Airway Health

‎•‎ And more


I can see the light at the end of the COVID pandemic tunnel. With ‎the vaccines and case numbers falling, spring is bringing ‎optimism and hope. Let’s use the messages and lessons from ‎COVID to be healthier and be better prepared for future health ‎challenges - for ourselves and our families.‎



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