COPD, A Disease to Take your Breath Away
Chronic obstruction pulmonary disease or COPD accompanies abnormal inflammation when you inhale harmful substances or gases, causing your lungs to age much faster than those of people without the disease. Symptoms of COPD include frequent coughing, large amounts of phlegm, and shortage of breath when working out. Since chronic bronchitis and pulmonary emphysema are hard to distinguish one from another in terms of their causes, symptoms, and treatment, COPD is often used as an umbrella term to refer to both.
What are the causes of COPD?
As more than 90% of COPD cases are related to smoking, the one and only preventive measure to slow the natural progression of COPD is to quit smoking. Other causes of the disease include work-related lung irritants such as dust and chemical substances, air pollution, innate sensitivity, and viruses.
What are the symptoms of COPD?
In its early stages, COPD is denoted by frequent coughing and a large amount of phlegm. You also easily become out of breath when climbing uphill, or carrying heavy objects. In particular, you find exhaling much harder than inhaling. When the disease gets worse, you may be short of breath for no particular cause or action in your daily life.
How do you diagnose COPD?
If you smoke or used to smoke, and show symptoms like coughing, phlegm, or dyspnoea, you may be at high risk of COPD. In this case, a pulmonary function test or PFT is conducted for diagnosis. While normal people can exhale most of the inhaled air in one second in a single attempt, a COPD patient can’t because of clogged or damaged airways. Therefore if you find the maximum amount of air exhaled in one second is less than 70% of the total amount inhaled, you may be diagnosed with COPD.
How do you treat COPD?
The main medication for COPD is a bronchodilator. There are different types of bronchodilator depending on the modus operandi and administration; it may be an inhalant or something administered orally. When your chosen medication has something to do with your lungs, an inhalant is usually recommended for two reasons: it could minimise the side effects on other organs, and we can expect the maximum effect with minimum dose.
Depending on the characteristics of each bronchodilator, we use different medicines. For patients in the second phase of the disease or worse, we recommend regular use of a long-acting bronchodilator which lasts for between 12 and 24 hours a day. For patients with intermittent aggravation of symptoms, we suggest short-acting medication which delivers quick effects for a short duration.
For the best results with an inhalant, you need to acknowledge how to use it properly and inhale it in accordance with recommended procedure.
The only way to prevent and slow the progress of COPD is to stop smoking. Therefore, all COPD patients are strongly recommended to go cold turkey with smoking. Although it wouldn’t result in immediate improvements in your lung’s condition, further damage from smoking would be stopped. We just can’t stress enough how important it is to quit smoking for COPD treatment.
Regular exercise is a must for COPD patients because it may ease the difficulty in breathing and improve symptoms of fatigue. Although overseas there are many dedicated rehabilitation program options for COPD, they are not available in Korea due to issues relating to medical fees.
Although lower limb exercises like walking do not directly improve your lung condition, they do improve your overall fitness and help you fight the disease. In addition, continuous workouts with your arms could help to alleviate the symptoms.
COPD is already one of the more common diseases in Korea and it will be increasingly important to come up with better ways to deal with it. However, we know we CAN make a difference by quitting smoking, as this greatly prevents the incidence and aggravation of the disease. Therefore, let’s do our best to stop smoking for a safer and healthier life for us all.