Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Must include Random thing on COPD: What needs to be included is written below. This is a group project and these are my portions.

-Overview of COPD

-Complications of COPD

-Different treatments for COPD; Medications, Lung Therapies(oxygen therapy, lung rehabilitation programs), Lifestyle Changes, Smoking cessation, Surgeries( lung volume reduction, bullectomy, lung transplant)
( Medications used for COPD in detail with different meds used, their classification and mechanism of action for each. Life style changes in detail on Smoking cessation, diet, exercise)

MUST INCLUDE 5 REFERENCES

ANSWER

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Overview of COPD

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is a lung disease that is inflammatory and chronic. COPD causes the patient to have obstructed airflow from their lungs. Approximately COPD affects 32 million individuals in the United States, and unfortunately, it is the third leading death cause in the US (Ejike et al., 2019). The disease’s most common symptoms include difficulty in breathing, sputum or mucus production, wheezing, and cough. Typically, long-term exposure to particulate matter and irritating gases are the leading causes of the disease. Individuals with this disease have a higher risk of developing lung cancer and heart disease, to mention a few. Patients with COPD have similar symptoms to emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Causes 

The leading causes of COPD in 1st world countries like the United States are tobacco smoking. However, unlike in individuals from underdeveloped and 3rd world countries, the disease’s leading cause is exposure to fumes from burning fuels (Olloquequi et al., 2018). They often consume the fumes when cooking in homes that have poor ventilation. With time, exposure to these irritants damages an individual’s airways and lungs, leading to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Main Symptoms of COPD

In most cases, the disease symptoms fail to appear until there is the occurrence of significant damage to the patient’s lungs. With time, the symptoms worsen more so if there is continuity to smoking exposure. The most common symptoms of COPD include Chest tightness, shortness of breath, more so when one participates in physical activities, persistent respiratory infections, and chronic cough that produce mucus, to mention a few. The produced mucus can either be greenish, yellow, or white. These individuals are also likely to experience exacerbation episodes. During these episodes, the symptoms worsen than the everyday persist and variation for days.

COPD Risk Factors

The most common risk factors of COPD include the following.

• Tobacco Smoking and Exposure– Tobacco smoking and exposure is the most common COPD risk factor. Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of COPD, and during the smoking process, the individual consumes tobacco, which ends up damaging the lungs. The more years a person smokes, the more cigarettes packets, the higher their chances of experiencing COPD are (Salvi, 2014). In addition to tobacco smokers, marijuana, cigar, and pipe smokers are also at a higher risk of experiencing this disease.
• Asthmatic Individuals-Asthma, itself is a chronic inflammatory disease. Therefore, if an asthmatic individual is a smoker, the combination makes the individual vulnerable to contracting the disease.
• Fumes from Burning Fuel Exposure-Unlike countries like the United States, individuals from 3rd world countries are at risk of contracting COPD from consuming fumes from burning fuels. It is so because these individuals are often exposed to these fumes when they burn fuel for heating and cooking in homes with poor ventilation. As a result, they end up inhaling these fumes, which are the leading cause of COPD. In addition to these fumes, an individual exposed to chemicals and dust is also likely to suffer from COPD.

Complications of COPD

If a person suffers from COPD, they cannot breathe as much air that the body requires. Therefore, without enough oxygen in their body, they may develop other complications. In some cases, COPD complications can be life-threatening to a patient, and it may limit their activities. Below are some of the common complications a person with COPD can develop

Respiratory and Lung Infections

Individuals with COPD have a higher likelihood of catching colds, pneumonia, and flu. It is so because the disease makes it almost impossible for the body to fight infections like pneumonia that affect the lungs. The slightest respiratory infection can make it more difficult for the patient to breathe; hence it could further damage the patient’s lung tissue. COPD may also lead to collapsed lungs as it damages lung tissues. Lungs collapse if air gets out into the space between a person’s chest and their lung.

Heart Problems

The second complication that a person with COPD is likely to experience is a heart problem. Since the person can hardly breathe in the required amount of oxygen, they are likely to have low blood oxygen levels. Having lower blood oxygen levels can cause a person to have narrowed arteries, leading to higher blood pressure (Yohannes & Alexopoulos, 2014). This may occur in the person’s blood vessels as the vessels go from one’s heart to the lungs. As a result, this can put so much stress on the heart, making the heart work harder than it should. These complications may result in heart failure, which is when the heart becomes too weak to perform its various duties. In addition to heart failure, COPD may result in the right heart side becoming more extensive, which may end up causing irregular heartbeats in a patient.

Pulmonary Hypertension

Pulmonary hypertension is when the blood vessel’s pressure, from the heart to the lungs, becomes too high. It then results in excess muscles in the blood vessel walls. It is a common complication associated with COPD because it causes high blood pressure in the human arteries responsible for taking blood to our lungs. Pulmonary hypertension worsens outcomes and symptoms for those suffering from COPD, and to top it up, and it shortens their lives as well.

Lung Cancer

A person with COPD is more likely to get lung cancer. If these individuals get lung cancer, their diagnosis outcome and treatment are worse than those without COPD (Barnes, 2016). Tobacco smoking is a leading cause of lung cancer, and it gets worse if a person suffers from COPD first. It facilitates and increases the chances of getting the disease.

Various treatments for COPD;

The aim of treating COPD is to help patients breathe easier and get back to their everyday lifestyles. There are various lifestyle approaches and treatments that can help in treating COPD. Here are some common ways of treating COPD

Medications

For many people with the disease, the most common medication used for COPD is long and short-acting bronchodilator inhalers. These are medications that ease breathing in a patient. It does that by widening and relaxing its airways.

Short-Acting Bronchodilators

These medications act by relaxing muscles around one’s airways. It works by reducing and easing symptoms like shortness of breath and coughing. They are often taken through inhalers, and their effects last for approximately 4 to 6 hours. The most common Short-Acting Bronchodilators medications include Ipratropium bromide and albuterol, levalbuterol, and albuterol.

Long-Acting Bronchodilators

These medications also work by relaxing the muscles around the airways (Cazzola & Page, 2014). However, their effects last longer, up to 12 hours. A person takes them daily to prevent symptoms from occurring. The most commonly used Long-Acting Bronchodilators medications include

• Aclidinium (Tudorza Pressair)
• Indacaterol (Arcapta)
• Salmeterol (Serevent)
• Arformoterol (Brovana)
• Formoterol (Foradil, Perforomist)

Steroids

Steroids work by bringing down the airway swellings. They are taken in through inhalers, and they help prevent COPD flare-ups. If one has worse symptoms, they can take steroids as pills. The most commonly inhaled steroids are Budesonide (Entocort, Pulmicort, Uceris) and Fluticasone (Cutivate, Flovent HFA).

Phosphodiesterase-4 (PDE-4) Inhibitor

Roflumilast is a drug that prevents severe symptoms of COPD. It works by bringing down lung swellings, and as it does that, it opens the airways for one to breathe easily. One can take the drug with a long-acting bronchodilator for faster results.

Lung Therapies

Lung therapy is also a treatment method for a person with COPD. It works in various ways, and it includes the following.

• Oxygen Therapy- with COPD, enough air may not get to the lungs. Therefore, the oxygen levels may go low. With oxygen therapy, the stories go high and keep the patient stay healthy and active at all times. The treatment involves patients breathing in oxygen via a mask in their noses.
• Lung rehabilitation programsare programs where one is educated on the various exercises that manage their breathing problems. A therapist will show and teach you the breathing ways and how you can measure the progress. The technique helps in lessening breathlessness.

Lifestyle Changes

Doctor and medicinal treatment are just an example of the management and control of COPD. However, the best way to control and prevent the disease is to make some lifestyle changes despite everything else. For example, a smoker needs to cease and altogether quit this habit. Once they have stopped, they should stay far away from those who smoke as possible. Changing the diet and exercising is also essential to control COPD. It works by increasing stamina and strengthening muscles that facilitate a person’s breathing process.

Surgeries

In case these treatments fail to work, a person may opt for surgery to control this disease. The most common surgeries for treatment include;

• Lung volume reduction:With this surgery, the doctor removes small pieces of the lungs damaged by the disease. Doing so helps the healthy lung parts expand quickly hence taking more oxygen in.
• Bullectomy– when one has COPD, the walls of the air sacs in the lungs are destroyed. When this happens, bullae are created, making it impossible for one to breathe. Bullectomy surgery removes the air spaces and hence improves airflow.
• Lung transplant:If a patient has severe lung damage, the surgeon may be obligated to remove the damaged lung and replace it with a donor’s.

References

Barnes, P. J. (2016). Inflammatory mechanisms in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 138(1), 16-27. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27373322/

Cazzola, M., & Page, C. (2014). Long-acting bronchodilators in COPD: where are we now and where are we going?. Breathe, 10(2), 110-120. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6824447/

Ejike, C. O., Dransfield, M. T., Hansel, N. N., Putcha, N., Raju, S., Martinez, C. H., & Han, M. K. (2019). Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in America’s black population. American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine, 200(4), 423-430. https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.201810-1909PP

Olloquequi, J., Jaime, S., Parra, V., Cornejo-Córdova, E., Valdivia, G., Agustí, À., & Silva, R. (2018). Comparative analysis of COPD associated with tobacco smoking, biomass smoke exposure or both. Respiratory research, 19(1), 1-8.

Salvi, S. (2014). Tobacco smoking and environmental risk factors for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Clinics in chest medicine, 35(1), 17-27.

Yohannes, A. M., & Alexopoulos, G. S. (2014). Depression and anxiety in patients with COPD. European Respiratory Review, 23(133), 345-349.

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