Juan Bautista Villamaría
Santiago de Compostela. Alpha 1 patient

With extensive professional experience in the banking sector, Juan Bautista, with a degree in Economics and Sociology and early retiree since 2011, comes to the Lovexair Patient Advisory Group with the motivation of “working for and with others.” Satisfaction is reciprocal when we talk about “solidarity and the possibility of working with a group of people from whom you can learn and contribute knowledge and experiences.”

His personal motivation is accompanied by his experience as an Alpha-1 patient and his recent diagnosis as a patient with COPD. As an indispensable complement to pharmacological treatment, she firmly defends controlled physical exercise and active participation in social groups as a way to improve quality of life.

Elena Serrano García
Madrid. Caregiver for patients with pulmonary fibrosis.

With a degree in Business Administration and Management from the Complutense University of Madrid and a BA in Management from the University of Leeds in England, she is currently a member of the Association of Relatives and Patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. She brings to the Advisory Group her extensive experience as a caregiver of patients with pulmonary fibrosis and the firm determination to “collaborate to promote knowledge and research into lung diseases, promote care for these patients and their families, and promote patient associations to improve their situation, access to treatments, recognition of disabilities, etc.”

Rafael Laborde
Seville. Pneumonia patient.

Rafael knows the Lovexair Foundation after participating in the “1st Digital Health Conference for professionals and chronic and respiratory patients: empowerment, support and self-care,” an event held in Seville. In this act, Rafael shows great interest in helping other people who are in the same situation. Rafael was diagnosed with severe pneumonia and consequently lost a lung. Currently he receives pulmonary rehabilitation at the Virgen del Rocío Hospital in Seville.

Rafael Laborde studied Chemistry and Business and graduated in CC. Information at the Complutense University of Madrid. In his most recent career, Rafael was Managing Director of Publications and Internet, advertising agency and editor of the specialized publications “La Guía del Motor” of Seville and Huelva.

Demetrio Vazquez Rodríguez
Barcelona. Alpha-1 patient.

The Lovexair Patient Advisory Group has the optimistic vision of Demetrio Vázquez, who speaks of his personal experience as an Alfa-1 patient with the positivism of someone who has experienced a “manifest improvement in the disease,” thanks to the medication. He considers that his evolution as a patient may be useful to other people who suffer from the disease and to health personnel and caregivers responsible for the treatment of this pathology.

Gema Rodríguez
Santa Cruz of Tenerife. Caregiver of patients with Alpha 1

Gema Rodríguez, psychologist and special education teacher, has worked for 15 years as a career counselor in groups at risk of social exclusion. She comes to the Lovexair Advisory Group with the necessary motivation to “learn from the Foundation itself and provide its support and experience to this group of patients, creating a physical space where they feel cared for and listened to.”

María José Gallego
Madrid. Mother of a girl with a rare respiratory disease.

Graduate in Medicine and mother of a girl with a rare respiratory disease, her contribution in the field of respiratory pathologies and her personal experience will help many people in similar situations.

Joaquina Fernández
Malaga. Patient with COPD and asthma

Former president of the Asma Madrid Association, she has a degree in Hispanic Philology and combines her passion for literature with her experience with respiratory diseases giving life to different literary characters in various blogs. Her personal way of transmitting the daily life of respiratory patients, through her characters, will be another way of approaching people in similar situations.

Andreia Jianu
Madrid. Mother of a child with asthma

Andreia Jianu is president of the Association of Parents of Students of the Pintor Rosales Public School in Madrid. Andreia joins the Foundation’s Advisory Group after collaborating in the “Healthy Cities, for the improvement of childhood asthma” project, a campaign promoted by Lovexair that promoted knowledge about this chronic disease. This initiative had the endorsement of scientific societies, public institutions and the private sector. Since her arrival to the Advisory Group, Andreia has participated very actively in several workshops related to asthma.

Yolanda Fernández
Barcelona. Patient with Interstitial Lung Disease.

Yolanda Fernández, a graduate in Early Childhood Education, knows about the Foundation after attending the “1st Digital Health Conference for professionals and chronic and respiratory patients”, held in Barcelona. Yolanda was diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease with hypersensitivity to the environment and allergic to all types of birds. Since then she had to stop working, and she became part of the Aire Association (Catalan association of patients with advanced respiratory diseases and lung transplants). Currently, she is an oxygen user and is on the waiting list to receive a double lung transplant. Yolanda brings to the Advisory Group her eagerness to help other people who are in the same situation.