Can I claim PIP for COPD?

Information about Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) to help you claim PIP:

This guide provides insights into COPD and its potential impact on daily living and mobility. It explains how COPD can help you to complete your PIP form and how it might affect your ability to carry out everyday activities safely, effectively, accurately, and repeatedly.

People with COPD have a range of characteristics and will have different experiences. The main symptoms that are relevant to a PIP claim are:

Shortness of breath – difficultly talking, feeling dizzy, weak and fatigued in a short space of time.
Chesty cough – causing chest pain, muscle pain and headaches
Re occurring chest infections.
Constant wheezing – affecting walking pace and breathing.

REMEMBER – these symptoms can suddenly worsen (also known as a flare up) and are often worst in winter. You may be hospitalised due to your symptoms.

How often

COPD symptoms can vary day to day depending on many factors, this may impact how severe your symptoms are and the help you need to manage them. This could be because of the weather, your stress levels or because of having a particularly active day yesterday. Whatever the reason PIP looks at how you are most of the time, 51%. If for most days, you need an aid or support or prompting than that should be included in your PIP claim.

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Daily living descriptors

The following sections outline the daily activities assessed in PIP claims and how COPD may affect them. This is not an exhaustive list; ensure all relevant details are included in your application.

1. Preparing food

COPD can impact how you prepare a simple meal in a variety of ways:

Challenges in standing for long periods of time or moving around the kitchen due shortness of breath or coughing.
Having aids such as a perching stool, electric can opener etc.
COPD causes fatigue whilst preparing food or after doing the task.
You have home oxygen therapy which means you need to stay away from heat sources.
Needing to rest during or after preparing food due to feeling breathless and needing to catch your breath throughout. Think about timings of this.
You cannot repeat the task to a acceptable standard.
Lifting pans can cause breathlessness.
Being in a hot kitchen causes shortness of breath.
You need prompting, assistance or supervision to complete the task of preparing food.
Using inhalers or oxygen and having to stop the task to do so. Think about timings and how often.

2. Eating and drinking

You may experience the following when eating and drinking:

Having a reduced appetite because of COPD.
Prompting by someone else to start or finish a meal.
Struggle to gain/maintain weight so use special nutritional drinks to help with this.
Becoming breathless or continuous coughing when eating or drinking. Think about timings and how often you must stop.
Eating slowly and having breaks due to feeling breathless.
Eating and drinking may become a choking hazard, and you need supervising to keep safe during a meal.

3. Managing Therapy or monitoring a Health condition

This descriptor examines how you manage health-related treatments, and you may find:

Using an aid such as a pill box to organise medication safely.
Fatigue due to COPD impacts your ability to safely take your medication.
Needing someone else to help manage medication safely.
Another person helps take your inhaler or other critical medication when you are struggling to breath.
Another person detects your COPD is deteriorating.
Struggling with phlegm in a morning and needing prompting, assistance or supervision to carry out clearing this.
Prompting, assistance or supervision when undertaking smoking cessation to help avoid deterioration.
Another person prompts, assists or supervises you when going to other medical appointments such as physiotherapy.

4. Using the toilet and managing incontinence

This descriptor is about the ability to use a toilet independently and to be able clean yourself afterwards and have no continence issues:

Aids are needed to get on and off the toilet or furniture in the bathroom such as radiators, the sink etc.
Loss of control of your bladder during a coughing fit.
Wearing incontinence pads.
Using an aid or needing assistance to clean yourself as you struggle with breathlessness and movement.
Need prompting, assistance or supervision to be able to manage your toilet needs to an acceptable standard.
Taking twice as long to use the toilet due to breathlessness or fatigue.

5. Dressing and undressing

This looks at whether you can dress and undress yourself and choose appropriate clothing:

You struggle to bend forward to dress your lower body due to breathlessness and fatigue. Someone may help you with this.
Sit down to dress as you feel dizzy and breathless.
Struggle to fasten underwear.
Using aids to put clothing and footwear on such as a shoehorn.
Cannot fasten clothing/footwear with buttons, zips and laces and choose easy to wear clothing and slip on footwear.
You wear dirty clothes as you cannot manage to change them due to being breathless and fatigue.
Think about timings and resting times. You may need to sleep after the process of getting dressed/undressed.

6. Communicating Verbally

This looks at someone with COPD and whether they can understand and convey verbal information:

Shortness of breath and coughing means you struggle to communicate with others.
Another person helps you to communicate or to be understood due to this.

7. Reading understanding signs, Symbols and Words

This looks at someone’s ability to read and understand basic and complex written information:

This section can be left blank. However, if you have other health conditions and/or a disability, these may affect you moving around so you need to include any relevant information in this section

8. Engaging with Other people Face to Face

COPD can mean you struggle socially and find it difficult due to:

The symptoms of COPD makes you feel self-conscious when around other people.
Fatigue means you are too tired to engage with other people.
Needing support from someone else as you struggle to engage on your own.
Mixing with people is too overwhelming and you want to leave the situation.

9. Making Budgeting Decisions

This looks at if someone with COPD can manage their money:

This section can be left blank. However, if you have other health conditions and/or a disability, these may affect you moving around so you need to include any relevant information in this section.

Mobility descriptors

These evaluate how COPD may affect mobility related tasks. This is not an exhaustive list; ensure all relevant details are included in your application.

1. Planning and Following a Journeys

COPD may make planning and following a journey challenging:

When following a journey, you become disorientated, fatigued, dizzy or faint. This could be due to being breathless or during a coughing fit.
Needing help and support from another person to stay safe whilst out

2. Moving around

Moving around looks at your ability to stand and walk up to 200 metres with or without an aid. COPD may make moving around a challenge:

Shortness of breath makes the distance you walk limited.
Coughing fits and shortness of breath means stopping and resting. Think about timings.
Repeating walking and journeys is a struggle due to COPD symptoms.
Walking pace may be fast, normal, slow or very slow because of shortness of breath, fatigue and dizziness.
Using a walking aid such as a walking stick or needing support from another person.
Walking causes pain or ankles to swell when moving around.

Finally…

It is important that when you complete your PIP form, that you include how COPD affects you in relation to each descriptor. Ensure that you give specific examples, under each descriptor, where you have struggled due to your conditions, where appropriate. It is important that you include any aids, adaptations or support/supervision that you need to help you complete each activity, where appropriate.

This information only covers COPD. If you have any other health conditions and/or disability you should include how they impact you under the relevant descriptors.

Remember to include copies of any relevant medical evidence, diagnosis letters, care plans etc to support your claim for PIP.

Please remember that this is not a complete list and if you have other symptoms or conditions that affect this descriptor, they need to be included on your PIP claim. More information can be found at www.gov.uk