When you mention someone with emphysema you might picture an older person, strapped to an oxygen tank as punishment for their years of heavy smoking. This is true in some cases, but what many people don’t know is that there is a gene for emphysema. This condition, called Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, is a rare genetic ...
What is COPD? And how can you recognize it and begin to treat or prevent it? These are 2 very common questions for most people but for those people living with COPD it is a very serious thing. Here is what you need to know about COPD to help protect your family. COPD is Chronic ...
Emphysema Diagnosis: The Nightmare Begins My mother was diagnosed with emphysema in late 2002. I had worked in a hospital more than 20 years earlier and did not remember any emphysema patients surviving the disease. I made sure my mother took all of her medications and performed all of her nebulizer treatments yet, even in ...
Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, may have many similarities as far as symptoms are concerned, but they are very different conditions in terms of onset and reversibility. What is COPD? COPD is a term that refers to two respiratory diseases: emphysema and chronic bronchitis. As one of the leading causes of death ...
Emphysema is one form of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that is characterized by long term shortness of breath, severe shortness of breath on exertion, wheezing and sometimes coughing, when emphysema is accompanied by another form of COPD, which is bronchitis and asthma. When emphysema is advanced or is exacerbated by another chronic lung disease, ...
