COPD Life Expectancy : COPD is the abbreviation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease though it is familiar to people in different terms.Some of other names of COPD are chronic obstructive lung disease (COLD), chronic airflow limitation (CAL), chronic obstructive airway disease (COAD), chronic obstructive respiratory disease (CORD) etc. COPD is considered as a progressive disease because the condition of it becomes worse over time. The most important thing about the COPD is that it causes various types of lungs problems and sometime it destructs the lungs almost totally. COPD is one of the most common reasons for the death globally. In USA, COPD is referred as the fourth highest cause of death. COPD is deadly and more than 80000 people die every year due to COPD. Usually, the life expectancy of COPD is quite less and it causes various types of health problems among people. If the COPD is detected at early stages of the development and the early symptoms are found, then it can be treated immediately and the COPD life expectancy can be increased greatly.
If the treatment is not taken on time then the COPD life expectancy of the sufferers can be limited.
The most common symptom of COPD is difficulty in breathing. This is a huge disability which gets worse when the disease progress. There are a number of techniques that the patients can consider to decrease. There are two most common techniques that are used by the doctors to help the patients get rid of the COPD problems and they are diaphragmatic breathing and lip breathing. If you suddenly feel short of breath and you do not have anything near you that can help you to get rid of this problem then these breath taking techniques can help you out. All you need to sit and relax in any comfortable place and then you have to breathe in and out through your mouth. You need to lower your head and shoulders and then you need to slow down the exhalations. You have to repeat this technique for few times which will help you out from the problem of breathlessness.
Smoking is the most common reason for the COPD. Every year, more than 3 million people die as a result of different types of smoking related diseases. COPD can also be caused due to dust, smoke and other air pollutants. There are many chemicals that are exposed to air can also cause COPD. Stop smoking is the most primary step that should be done by the COPD patients in order to get rid of the problem but quitting smoking might not help completely. It only decreases the risk factor a bit but every action should be done towards the defeat of the COPD.
The pathophysiology of COPD is not very easy to understand. There are some structural changes can be found in the airways in case of COPD. Other things that are noticed in case of COPD are dysfunction of cilia and the most importantly inflammatory responses. These three things mainly lead to the blockage of the airways of the lungs. The main reason for the inflammatory response of the COPD is too much smoking. There are some other reasons too such as pollens, smoke, air pollutants, dust and other chemicals. There is a no fixed treatment option available to cure COPD. Inhalers might help people to get rid of the COPD but inhalers can only be used when the first symptoms of COPD are observed which is characterized by chronic cough. The function of the inhalers is to push the drug directly to the airways of the lungs when you start breathing. There are many people who are benefitted by using the inhalers but there are huge numbers of people who do not get any type of benefit by using the inhalers. There are many people who use the inhalers regularly to reduce the breathlessness and to expand their COPD life expectancy. Some of the people use inhalers when they experience troubles of breathlessness and wheezing.
When the development of COPD is at a stage beyond the initial stages, giving up the smoking habit is not the only thing that can help. It cannot increase the life expectancy. The oxygen therapy is the only way to treat the COPD at such stages. In this therapy, the patients should inhale oxygen through the mask provided with the oxygen cylinder. In most of these cases, the patients need to buy the oxygen cylinders at their home and they need to fill it regularly. There are some portable versions of oxygen cylinders available in market which is mainly meant for travelling purposes. Today, various types of oxygen concentrator machines are also available in markets which are mainly used to produce oxygen from air. These are considered as the most convenient replacement of the traditional oxygen tanks.
There are many severe cases of COPD where only oxygen therapy might not help. These stages are considered as the final stages of COPD where the COPD life expectancy might be zero. In such cases, the only way to increase the COPD life expectancy is lungs transplantation. Transplantation of lungs is usually recommended to the patients who are having COPD for many years and whose COPD life expectancy is somehow between two years or three years. In this stage, the doctors cannot confidently say the actual life expectancy of the COPD.
If COPD is diagnosed in any person, giving up the smoking habit might help to increase the COPD life expectancy greatly. There are some other treatment options available such as exercise, proper diet, oxygen therapy etc which can help to get rid of the COPD in a short time but these therapies cannot fight if you do not leave smoking. It is quite important to visit the doctor immediately COPD is diagnosed.
There are many online forums where you can ask about the treatment options available for COPD to the doctors and patients and you can get some valuable suggestions to improve the COPD life expectancy there.
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