What are the COPD treatment guidelines?

COPD Treatment

What are the COPD treatment guidelines?

By JodonP → วันศุกร์ที่ 12 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2557

     COPD is one of the serious disease which can lead a patient towards the lung cancer at the later stage if any patient doesn’t for the proper treatments. The full meaning of COPD is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. So from the meaning it is clear that, this disease affects the respiratory system of any person. For this reason if any person found some symptoms of this disease within himself/herself, he/she should not make any late to go the doctors. Because it is the doctors who can give a patient proper COPD treatment guidelines. However, in this article some general COPD treatment guidelines will be shown to help the people.

     Among all the COPD treatment guidelines, the first one is to identify whether this disease is present within the body or not. There are several symptoms of this disease which will be found in the other related articles. If anyone is found to have some of the symptoms and at the same time he/she is struggling to enter enough air into the lungs, then he/she shouldn’t make any late in going to the doctor for the check up. At that time, doctors mat suggest you to go for a common X-ray test of the patient’s chest. The X-ray report is the confirmation of this disease. This disease is quite normal for those people who smoke for a long time. It’s not possible to cure this disease immediately after the confirmation, but this disease can be cured totally if proper steps are taken from that time.

     After the confirmation a proper COPD treatment guidelines are to be followed. Among those guidelines, some therapies are included which give a much better result in the recovery from this disease. Among thos therapies, oxygen therapy, steroid therapy etc. are mentionable. Besides a patient can be given antibiotics and Bronchodilators. With the oxygen therapy, the patient is treated with a high flow of oxygen in the lung. In the therapy the saturation of oxygen with the other elements of air should be more than 90%. Because at that saturation level a better outcome is found. The steroid therapy is another important therapy which is to be given to the patients inthe formofinhale. Steroids are considered as life savers in those conditions. Respiratory problems can be cured within one or two weeks with the application of steroid therapy. Antibiotics are also effective to control this disease as it is prescribed by the doctors to prevent the bacterial or viral attack. And the Bronchodilators helps a patient in the breathing mechanism.

     So these are the proper COPD treatment guidelines which are to be followed to get a quick relief from this disease. One of the important suggestions is that, if any person able to find some of the symptoms of this disease within himself/herself, he/she should not make any delay to contact with the doctor. Because if it is handled carelessly, then this disease can turn into a serious disease at the later stage. So to cure this disease, the treatment should be started early.

What are the COPD treatments?

COPD Treatment

What are the COPD treatments?

By JodonP → วันศุกร์ที่ 21 พฤศจิกายน พ.ศ. 2557

     Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a term used for people who have chronic bronchitis, emphysema or both. It occurs when someone has obstructed expiratory airflow from the lungs. The most common cause of COPD is smoking. Symptoms include coughing and shortness of breath. The most important COPD treatment is to stop smoking. 

Symptoms to be considered for COPD treatment:

• A cough is usually the first symptom. Initially it tends to occur sporadically but gradually becomes more persistent (chronic). Can be misinterpreted that cough as ‘smoker’s cough’, in the early stages of the disease.
• Dyspnea or difficulty in breathing and shortness of breath may occur initially in some specific activities, for example in climbing a ladder. These symptoms tend to worsen gradually year by year and if continue smoking. The difficulty in breathing may worsen considerably.
• Mucus. The air vents are damaged produce much more mucus than it normally. Thereby increasing the amount of daily sputum production.
• Respiratory infections are more common in COPD. Wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath may worsen some respiratory infection. Sputum are usually yellow or green color.

COPD Treatments:

     Stopping smoking is the most important treatment. The patients may not need any other treatment if the condition is in the initial stages the symptoms are mild. These COPD treatments cannot cure COPD completely. The therapy aims to retreat and relief of symptoms. Also, some treatments can prevent some exacerbations of symptoms. As a general rule, a trial period of 1-3 months for a cure can show if this helps or not. Treatment may be continued after the trial period if it helps to be stopped or not improve the condition of symptoms.

• Inhalers with short-acting bronchodilators
• Inhalers with long-acting bronchodilators
• Inhaler corticosteroid
• Tablets bronchodilators
• Tablets with corticosteroids
• Mucolytic drugs
• Continuous Oxygen
• Surgical lung volume reduction

     Treatment of exacerbations should be done in a hospital, depending on the severity of the patient’s overall condition and developing respiratory acidosis, by the branches of pulmonary or intensive care units. Recently it is gaining popularity in attempts to treat COPD exacerbations in patients with severe disease who did not develop respiratory failure in the home. Such treatment may have a positive medical aspects and economic considerations, but still has no strict guidelines on which patients could be eligible for treatment at home. This possibility therapy has not found wide application.

     Drug is the first choice of patients with exacerbations of COPD is oxygen. It is served with a mustache or a Venturi mask however this may be well tolerated by the patient. The flow is selected so as to obtain a reduction of hypoxemia (recommended oxygenation – partial pressure of oxygen of> 60 mmHg, or the saturation of O 2 > 90%). It is advisable to carry out an arterial oxygen before and after 1 hour. For rapid bronchodilation such as short-acting, inhaled beta-agonists, such as salbutamol is good. In the absence of it the patients can second-line drug such as anticholinergics.