Of Bronchitis, COPD, Definition, Symptoms, Diagnosis And Treatment
What does COPD mean? COPD stands for
Chronic obstructive pulmonarchronic bronchitis Disease. It encompasses two types of disease processes namely chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Quite often, people who suffer from COPD show a combination 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 commonly used to
medicine for bronchitis, emphysema, or both.
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 usually added to confirm the diagnosis. If the test result does not show improvement 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 underlying mechanism of COPD
denison university, medications are used with an aim to slow down it's progress. Drugs that are commonly used to treat COPD include short-acting bronchodilator inhalers (i.e. salbutamol), long-acting bronchodilator inhalers (i.e. tiotropium), steroid inhalers and tablets are all available drugs for treatment of COPD. Again, no treatment is more important that stop smoking. Lung transplant is the last option and should be reserved for people with severe COPD.
Is COPD a common condition?
It is one of the commonest conditions that require hospital admission during period of flare-ups. According to one epidemiology study in the US, approximately eight million people have chronic bronchitis whereas 2
dominican college have emphysema. As we can see,
symptoms of bronchitis is more common than emphysema.
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