There are many people who do not know the COPD definition. COPD is the short form of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. It encompasses mainly two diseases. One is chronic bronchitis and the second one is emphysema. There are many times while people suffer from this diseases show a combination feature of both of the diseases. In lay person’s point of view, COPD definition is persistent lung disease with some features of airway narrowing. Bronchitis is the inflammation of bronchi which is the formation of larger airways of lungs. Emphysema is considered as the destruction of smaller airways. COPD is usually described as the chronic bronchitis or emphysema. Sometime it can be considered as the combination of both the diseases.
There is a debate going on the fact
whether COPD is a common condition or not. The thing is that the COPD is
one of the commonest condition people experience today and this is one
of the diseases when you need to hospitalize the patients during the
flare ups. According to a study done by the health ministry of US, the
total number of people suffering from the chronic bronchitis is more
than 2 million and more than two million people are suffering from
emphysema. Chronic bronchitis is more common compared to the emphysema.
A number of researches are going on
regarding the causes of COPD. Smoking is the most common reason for the
COPD. Most of the COPD cases, perhaps, more than 90 percent of the COPD
cases are caused by smoking cigarettes or other smoking. It has been
proven in researches that about 30 percent of long term smokers
experience some of the symptoms of COPD of different levels. There are
some other reasons for the development of COPD and they are air
pollution and various types of deficiency of enzymes such as alpha-1
antitrypsin deficiency.
There are many people who do not have
any knowledge on how smoking causes COPD. The formation of COPD through
smoking can be understood quite easily. Smoking starts damaging the
lining of the airways and gradually, inflammation occurs. Inflammation
starts damaging the already damaged lining of the airways and the
airways become narrower than usual.
The symptoms of COPD are can be
understood from the COPD definition. There are a number of symptoms from
where the COPD can be diagnosed. The common symptoms of COPD are
breathlessness and cough. Most of the COPD patients report that they
experience breathlessness and gradually, the cough is developed over
period of time. There are many people who experience that the cough
comes and then it goes initially and they think that this is just a
matter of cough and cold but actually, the cough can become persistent
with the time.
Breathlessness is another common symptom
of COPD. There are many people who experience it and then they quit
smoking and it does not affect anymore but there are many people who do
not stop smoking after experiencing it. In these cases, it becomes quite
severe and patients can experience breathlessness even when they are
resting. There are some other symptoms of COPD too such as sputum
production in which the patients constantly cough up the phlegm
throughout the day and it leads to chest infection. People suffering
from COPD develop chest infection more because of the obvious reasons
because if the lining of the lung is damaged, the normal mechanism is
hampered.
There are many people who think that the
asthma and COPD are same but this is not true. There are a number of
differences between the COPD and asthma. It might be true that the
symptoms of the asthma and COPD are same but they can be considered
different from various aspects. The COPD definition and definition of
asthma is different. The most important different is that the lung
airways are damaged permanently in case of COPD because the obstruction
cased by the COPD is permanent. In general terms, it can be stated that
the obstruction is irreversible.
On the other hand, it can be stated that
the airway narrowing in case of asthma is intermittent and it can be
treated quite easily through proper medication. The similarity between
these two is that both the COPD and asthma is common among people
because people suffering from COPD can develop the components of asthma
or vice versa.
In order to diagnose the COPD, a number
of tests are carried out by the physicians. The most common test usually
performed by the doctors to diagnose the COPD is spirometry. Another
most common technique used by the doctors to diagnose the COPD is
Bronchodilators. This is a kind of drug which is used to dilate the
airway. The doctors can confirm the COPD if they find that the test
result is not showing any improvement after using the Bronchodilators.
Now, after knowing the COPD definition
and the diagnosing process, you might be interested to know the
treatments of COPD. The first thing suggested by the doctors to get rid
of the COPD is to stop smoking. This is something which will not make
much stress. If you want to be treated sooner, then it is very important
for you to stop smoking. As the mechanism of formation of COPD is
irreversible, the effects of medication might be slower if you smoke
along with the medication process. There are various drugs available
today that are prescribed by the doctors for the treatment of COPD.
They include some short term
Bronchodilator inhalers such as salbutamol and some long-acting
bronchodilator inhalers such as tiotropium. Some other medications
prescribed by the doctors for the treatment of COPD are steroid inhalers
and steroid tablets. But, the doctors always say that there is no
treatment available for COPD than stop smoking. For people with severe
COPD, the doctors recommend lung transplant which is a major surgery and
it is performed in very few hospitals across the world and this is
quite expensive too. There are many websites where you can find the
details on COPD definition.
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