Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is the result of the obstruction of the airways and of the air out of the lungs as you exhale. Not only is this condition usually permanent with attacks (called exacerbations when the attacks become worse, even life-threatening) occurring over long periods of time (hence the word “chronic” in the name of the condition), it can also become more serious with each attack. COPD is usually caused by three conditions that over time that wreak havoc on the respiratory system. These conditions are: chronic bronchitis, chronic asthma, and emphysema. However, chronic asthma is not as likely to cause COPD as the chronic bronchitis and emphysema (which the chronic bronchitis and emphysema sometimes are BOTH …show more content…
When a person is affected by chronic bronchitis, their airways (which are the bronchial tubes) that have the specific job of carrying air to their lungs become very inflamed and then make an overabundance of mucus. This mucus that is produced then starts to thicken and become plentiful in the airways. When this happens, the mucus then becomes so thick it starts to block the airways. When the airways are blocked, or “obstructed”, it makes it very hard for that affected person to breathe normally and they have to put a lot more energy into trying to breathe at a normal rhythm. Emphysema is probably the worst of the conditions that cause COPD. Every little bit of damage or every symptom that accompanies this condition are usually irreversible. In a healthy person, there are little tiny air sacs in the lungs that have elasticity that bounces right back with each breath that you take. When a person is affected with emphysema, the tiny little air sacs that are supposed to have that perfect elasticity that bounces right back when they get stretched out then loses that elasticity a little bit at a time, over a long period of time. When this happens, those air sacs in the lungs then become stretched out and they do not push the air through the lungs as they should causing less and less air to pass in and out of the lungs. This then causes a shortness of breath. Once this damage and loss of elasticity in the air sacs becomes severe enough, each breath that the affected person
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) refers to a recurring illness of the respiratory system that makes it difficult to breathe by restricting the flow of air in and out of the lungs. COPD includes chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and other lung conditions.
The main symptoms of COPD are long lasting cough, mucus that come up when you cough, and when you exercise (or even just walk up the stairs) shortness of breath can get worse. When COPD gets worse, it gets harder to eat or exercise, and breathing takes much more energy. People often lose weight and get weaker. Symptoms might even flare up and get much worse. This is called COPD exacerbation. An exacerbation can range from mild to life threatening. The longer you have this disease, the more severe the flare up can get.
One of the biggest causes of COPD is a cigarettes smoking. Habitual smoking can inflame the linings of the airways in the lungs and can make the
COPD is an irreversible progressive lung disease that makes it harder for people to breath. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (2015), COPD is the third leading cause of death in the United States.
Patients that do have chronic bronchitis ( B COPD) typically exhibit shortness of breath on exertion, excessive amounts of sputum, chronic cough, and evidence of excess bodily fluids (edema, hypervolemia). Chronic cough tends to be most severe in the mornings, is productive, and occurs for more than 3 months and occurring each year for at least 2 consecutive years. In addition, patients tend to complain about chills, malaise, muscle aches, fatigue, loss of libido, and insomnia. Smoking is also a typical clinical manifestation and is the leading cause of B COPD (accounting for 90% of cases). Late signs include right-sided heart
Chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases also known as lung cancer is a condition of slow irreversible progressive airway obstruction which gets worse over time. This includes several obstructive diseases of the lungs, including chronic bronchitis, asthma, emphysema, cystic fibrosis and pneumoconiosis. The outcome varies with the consequences with COPD. Approximately 12 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with COPD. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States.
The main cause of COPD is smoking, the more smoking the worse it gets, because smoking causes the lungs to inflame which then causes scarring, and by time the scarring leads to permanent changes in the lung which then leads to COPD.
COPD is a disease that depletes a person of air. This disease is the fourth top cause of death in the United States. COPD describes several lung diseases including emphysema, chronic bronchitis, refractory asthma, and other forms of bronchiectasis. There is no average case, as every case is different from the next. This disease is long term but treatable.
Have you ever known a person who smokes and has a hard time doing every day activities, due to difficulty of breath, or constantly coughing. He or she may have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD. COPD is a progressive and treatable lung disease that causes shortness of breath due to obstruction of air way (COPD, 2013). Progressive means that is gradually gets worse over time. It is a combination of chronic bronchitis and emphysema (Causes,2014). Chronic bronchitis is inflammation of the bronchioles, which causes mucus build up (Davis,2016). Emphysema is when the air sacs get enlarged (Smoking, 2016). Since the disease does not have a cure yet it is important to know pathology (path of disease), epidemiology (who is effected in a population), ethology (who is effected genetically), manifestation (symptoms), treatment, and outcome.
COPD is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is an “advanced” heart disease that makes it hard to breathe.” Advanced” means the disease get worse over the time. COPD affect the lungs, the air that you breathe goes down your windpipe into tubes in your lungs called bronchial tubes or airway. This airways and air sacs are elastic, when you breathe in; each air sac fills up with air like a small balloon and when you breathe out, the air sacs collapse and the air goes out. The air you breathe in is oxygen and the air you breathe out is carbon dioxide. In COPD, less air flows in and out of the airways because of one or more of the following reasons:
In chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the airways and tissues of the lungs gradually become damaged over time, causing
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is an umbrella term used to portray dynamic lung sicknesses including emphysema, constant bronchitis, unmanageable (non-reversible) asthma, and a few types of bronchiectasis. This malady is described by expanding shortness of breath (What is COPD?). Many individuals botch their expanded shortness of breath and hacking as an ordinary piece of maturing. In the early phases of the infection, you may not see the side effects (What is COPD?).
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a major cause of disability and the third leading cause of death in the United States. COPD is a gradually developing disease that makes it hard to breathe. COPD can cause coughing that produces large amounts of mucus, wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and other similar symptoms.
Chronic Bronchitis is formed when the bronchial tubes become inflamed. The bronchioles become inflamed when hypersecretion of mucus occurs. This hypersecretion isn’t being prevented due to the cilia being damaged. When excess mucus is formed it creates an obstruction in the bronchial tubes that lead to the lungs (Kim, 2013). This can occur if the patient has Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease, is a smoker, or a factory worker that is exposed to irritants on a daily basis (American Lung Association, 2015). Research has also
○ COPD, obstructive lung conditions like asthma, are commonly exacerbated by infection and led to respiratory illness and failure