Particular aspects provide a garment for simulating chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), comprising a particularly efficacious combination of a thorax-constricting garment portion, and a diaphragm-impeding garment portion, along with an optional restrictive airway mask. The thorax-constricting portion has a frontal abdominal-thoracic plate member and tensioning means extendible around a wearer's thoracic circumference to provide for constrictive thoracic-abdominal tensioning. The diaphragm-impeding portion has a projection (e.g., weighted projection or pouch) projecting away from the wearer-proximal surface of the frontal plate member, which is operative with the thorax-constricting portion to simultaneously constrict thorax expansion while impeding diaphragm contraction and downward movement. Additional aspects provide a method for simulating COPD, comprising tensioning a thoracic-abdominal constricting garment, having diaphragm-impeding means and optional restrictive airway mask, around a wearer's thoracic-abdominal area at a tension, and for a time period sufficient to simulate at least one symptom or effect of COPD.