COPD Research Paper

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COPD COPD is known as Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Chronic airflow obstruction (CAO), and Chronic obstructive lung disease (COLD). COPD damages the lungs making it hard to breathe. This lung disease is a mixture of two diseases: Emphysema, and Chronic Bronchitis. Emphysema is like tiny balloon sacs in the lungs. As a person breathes in and out, the sacs become bigger and smaller to move air through the lungs. When these sacs are damaged they stretch making less air come in and out of the lungs. Inside of those alveoli's this is where the blood is exchanging carbon dioxide, for oxygen. When the sacs become larger they move less oxygen in the blood. Which causes short of breath. Chronic bronchitis is where it carries air to the lungs and becomes inflamed and a lot of mucus is produced. This makes it harder by the airways becoming narrow or…show more content…
Symptoms that COPD includes is coughing more mucus than normal, color or change in mucus, and shortness of breath. There are four stages of COPD: Stage 1 usually brings a chronic cough that often brings up mucus from the lungs. Stage 2 is moderate COPD. In stage 2, is where you become shortness of breath, you produce a little more mucus, and a flare up of COPD. Stage 3 is more mucus being produced than stage 1 and 2. In this stage one becomes shortness of breath, fatigue and reduces the ability to exercise, more flare ups than stages 1 and 2. Stage 4 is where one produces more mucus than any other stage of COPD. In this stage a person will become more shortness of breathe, will begin to loose weight. The patients lips, fingers, and toes will turn blue. This is where the person will contain fluid build up in the legs and feet. This is when COPD is life threatening. Some symptoms are tremendously bad for a COPD patient is: A very high fever, swelling of the belly and toes, coughing up blood, and coughing more than normal. These are when you should call 911 for
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