What does Copd mean? Copd stands for chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. It encompasses two types of disease processes namely chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Quite often, population who suffer from Copd show a mixture of features of both disease processes. In lay person's term, Copd means persistent lung disease with features of airway narrowing. To be more specific, bronchitis means inflammation of the bronchi or the larger airways of the lungs whereas emphysema means destruction to the smaller airways and alveoli or airsacs of the lungs. Thus Copd is generally used to enumerate chronic bronchitis, emphysema, or both.
Is Copd a common condition? It is one of the commonest conditions that need hospital admission while period of flare-ups. agreeing to one epidemiology study in the Us, roughly eight million population have chronic bronchitis whereas 2 million population have emphysema. As we can see, chronic bronchitis is more common than emphysema.
What are the causes of Copd? Smoking. Smoking is the whole 1 cause of Copd. More than 90 percent of Copds are caused by smoking, cigarette or otherwise. About 30 percent of long term smokers will finally show symptoms of Copd of varying degrees. Other causes contain air pollution and inherited enzyme scantness namely alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency.
How does smoking cause Copd? Smoking inadvertently damages the lining of the airways. As with any other part of the body in response to injury, inflammation occurs. Inflammation stimulates the damaged lining to secrete mucus in an abnormal whole and also causes the airway to constrict (narrow).
What are the symptoms of Copd? The two main symptoms are cough and breathlessness. Copd sufferers generally complain about breathlessness and cough that construct slowly over a long period of time. The cough that Copd sufferer gets are ordinarily effective which means they generally cough up phlegm. The cough ordinarily comes and goes initially but tends to become persistent as time passes. Breathlessness is ordinarily intermittent and only occurs with attempt in the beginning, any way if you continue to smoke, the breathlessness persists even when you are at rest, this can be quite distressing! Other symptoms are chronic sputum production, where you constantly cough up phlegm all day and recurrent chest infection. population with Copd are more prone to chest infection for inescapable reasons, as the lining in the lung looses its normal defense mechanism against intruding bugs.
Copd sounds like asthma, are they any different? Yes. Both Copd and asthma cause similar symptoms, however, they are dissimilar in inescapable ways. Copd causes permanent damage to the airways. The obstruction is 'fixed', hence it is irreversible in normal terms. However, airway narrowing in asthma is intermittent and reverses quite well with medication. Having said that, both Copd and asthma is common, population who suffer Copd can have an asthmatic component and vice versa.
What tests are needed to diagnose Copd? A test called spirometry is often performed to diagnose Copd. Bronchodilators (drugs that cause the airway to dilate) are ordinarily added to confirm the diagnosis. If the test consequent does not show revising with bronchodilators, then Copd is very likely.
What are the treatments of Copd? First of all. Stop smoking. This cannot be stressed enough. Smoking cessation is the first thing you have to do if you want to get better. As the basic mechanism of Copd is irreversible, medications are used with an aim to slow down it's progress. Drugs that are generally used to treat Copd contain short-acting bronchodilator inhalers (i.e. salbutamol), long-acting bronchodilator inhalers (i.e. tiotropium), steroid inhalers and tablets are all ready drugs for rehabilitation of Copd. Again, no rehabilitation is more prominent that stop smoking. Lung transplant is the last option and should be reserved for population with severe Copd.
Lung Infection Symptoms:Copd - Definition, Symptoms, analysis And treatment
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