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877.809.5515 www.knowingmore.com [email protected] A Disease Process Module: UNDERSTANDING COPD ©1998-2016 May be copied for use within each physical location that purchases this inservice. Developing Top-Notch CNAs, One Inservice at a Time Inside This A Disease Process Module: Inservice: Understanding COPD What Is COPD? 2 TAKE A DEEP BREATH! How Do the Lungs 3 Work? Take a slow deep breath in through your nose. Expand your lungs. Hold Symptoms of COPD 4 it for the count of five. Now slowly What Causes COPD? 5 blow the air out through your mouth. The Facts about 6 Smoking Breath in and breath out. You don't even have to think about it when So, what do you think happens to What’s It Like to 7 you are healthy and strong. people who simply cannot take a deep Have COPD? Breathing in brings healthy oxygen breath? What Doctors Know 8 into your body. Breathing out Lung damage that results from COPD about COPD removes poisonous carbon dioxide does just that. It makes the vital act of from your body. Treatment for COPD 9 breathing extremely difficult, Oxygen in your lungs is picked up by sometimes painful and completely Client Care Tips 10-12 your blood. Oxygenated blood is inefficient. pumped by the heart to every cell in The result is decreased brain function the body. leading to dementia, muscle wasting, Your brain needs oxygen to organ failure, and anxiety. think, dream, invent, talk, love, and sing! COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States right now, Your muscles need oxygen to but is expected to become the third walk, run, lift, wave, hug, and leading cause of death by 2020. dance! Every organ in your body needs There is no cure for COPD. But, there © 2016 In the Know, Inc. are some things you can do to help. www.knowingmore.com oxygen to function properly. May be copied for use within Keep reading to find out how COPD Taking a slow deep breath even each physical location that damages the body, how it is treated has the power to relax you when purchases this inservice from and managed, and how you can best you're feeling, anxious, fearful, or In the Know. All other copying help your client deal with the changes or distribution is strictly stressed out! prohibited. that come with a diagnosis of COPD. A Client Care Module: Understanding COPD © 2016 In the Know, Inc. Page 2 WHAT IS COPD? THE TERM COPD STANDS FOR: CHRONIC BRONCHITIS is an inflammation inside the breathing Chronic tubes in the lungs. When these Obstructive tubes get inflamed, air has a hard Pulmonary time passing through. A thick Disease mucus is produced and coughed OTHER PROBLEMS up. COPD is a chronic disease, which means CAUSED BY COPD: that it continues over a long period of EMPHYSEMA affects the tiny air COR PULMONALE: time. And it’s obstructive, because it sacs in the lungs. These sacs lose blocks the passage of air, making it hard their elasticity—like an overused With COPD, the to breathe. COPD is a pulmonary rubber band. Stale air gets heart has to work disease, which means that it affects the trapped in them, making it harder very hard to pump lungs. to breathe. This causes shortness blood into the of breath and a cough. narrow passages of COPD is also a progressive and irreversible the lungs. After a disease. This means that it gets worse Remember...most clients with COPD while, the heart over time and that a person with COPD have some combination of both becomes enlarged. won’t get better (once there has been chronic bronchitis and Clients with cor damage in the lungs). emphysema. But, it pulmonale may get doesn’t really matter tired easily, have an COPD is made up of two similar if Mr. Smith’s COPD abnormal heart beat conditions: chronic bronchitis is mostly bronchitis and suffer from and emphysema. Both of these or Mrs. Brown’s chest pains. lung conditions keep the lungs COPD is mostly from working properly—and PNEUMONIA AND emphysema. Just prevent a person from OTHER CHEST think of these two breathing normally. INFECTIONS: conditions as Many clients with COPD have COPD—and follow Pneumonia is an both chronic bronchitis and the tips given in this infection of the lung emphysema at the same inservice to help tissue. When lungs time—so their lungs have your clients live a have been damaged double the trouble! higher quality of by COPD, they can life. become infected easily. Grab your favorite highlighter! As you read through this inservice, highlight five things you learn that you didn’t know before. Share this new information with your supervisor and co-workers! A Client Care Module: Understanding COPD © 2016 In the Know, Inc. Page 3 HOW DO THE LUNGS WORK? ALVEOLAR SAC ALVEOLI A FEW LUNG TRACHEA FACTS BRONCHI The lungs are large and cone-shaped. They look like giant BRONCHIOLES sponges and are grayish-pink in color. In adult lungs, there are 600-800 million tiny air sacs (called alveoli). Each time a person breathes, air People with COPD aren’t able to use Together, both your enters the nose and airways. It goes their breathing muscles properly. In lungs weigh about through the trachea to the lungs. addition, their lungs don’t work very 2.5 pounds. Then, the air goes through the well! Lungs move all the bronchi to the bronchioles which The walls of the small airways and time. spread out like the branches of a tree. the tiny air sacs become damaged If a person’s lung From there, millions of very small and less flexible. tissue was spread airways carry the air to tiny air sacs The airway walls thicken, causing out, it would just called alveoli. From these tiny air large airways to shrink and small about cover a tennis sacs, the air is absorbed into blood airways to become totally blocked. court! vessels. In addition, mucus plugs up the The right lung has In a normal lung, air has no airways and tiny air sacs three sections—but problem getting through to the air throughout the lungs. the left lung has sacs because the muscles that “Stale” air gets trapped in the only two. wrap around the airways are very lungs. This stale air takes up room loose and thin. This gives the The average adult that should be used by fresh air. airways plenty of room to open breathes about up. These blockages make it really 25,000 times every hard for air to move in and out of day. By the age of When the airways are open, it’s the lungs. 70, the average easy for air to move in and out of adult will have the tiny air sacs. In other As a result, people with COPD have taken at least 600 trouble getting the oxygen that words...it’s easy to breathe! million breaths! their bodies need. A Client Care Module: Understanding COPD © 2016 In the Know, Inc. Page 4 SYMPTOMS OF COPD Early symptoms of COPD often start out OTHER SYMPTOMS OF COPD WHAT IS A mild and do not cause much concern. MAY INCLUDE: SMOKER’S COUGH? Over time, as the symptoms worsen Tiny hairs (called cilia) and fail to resolve, lung damage begins Fatigue, depression, and anxiety. line the healthy to occur. Weight loss. respiratory tract and help There are four main symptoms of Enlarged chest (also called “barrel to move mucus from the COPD: chest”). lungs up through the trachea to the back of the 1. CHRONIC COUGH that may Too little oxygen can cause COPD throat. produce mucus. This is usually the clients to have a bluish color to their earliest symptom. It can start out skin, lips, and nails. This is known as the mild, then gradually increase in “ciliary elevator.” It’s just frequency and produce more and Headache, irritability, and problems like an elevator in a tall more mucus. (See section on thinking and learning. building, except mucus is the passenger! “Smoker’s Cough.”) 2. SHORTNESS OF BREATH with WARNING SIGNS THAT COPD When you feel the need minimal exertion. This usually IS GETTING WORSE INCLUDE: to clear your throat, you remove this mucus. develops later on and continues to More or less mucus than usual. get worse as COPD progresses. Most people just swallow A change in the color of the it back down. It’s 3. CHEST TIGHTNESS. mucus—from clear to brown, completely normal. As lung yellow, or green. damage Smoking damages the cilia by gunking it up, progresses, A change in the stickiness of sort of like getting maple breathing the mucus—from less to more syrup in your hair. When becomes more sticky. this happens, the ciliary difficult. There Blood in the mucus. elevator can no longer may be a Increased shortness of remove the mucus from feeling of breath. the lungs. painful tightness in the Ankles that swell up So, instead of just chest. suddenly. clearing the throat, the smoker has to cough, 4. WHEEZING or An unusual gain or loss of sometimes forcefully, to a whistling weight. get the mucus out. sound that occurs while breathing Being extra tired. is common if the airways become The cough is always worse first thing in the swollen or blocked. Having morning headaches, dizzy spells, restlessness, and morning after a long sleeplessness. period of inactivity. A Client Care Module: Understanding COPD © 2016 In the Know, Inc. Page 5 WHAT CAUSES COPD? COPD is usually caused by long term AIR POLLUTION: For smokers, air PREVENTION IS THE exposure to things that irritate the pollution can be a factor, too.

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