Emphysema is a disease associated with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and occurs when the alveoli over-inflate. This over-inflation causes the walls of the alveoli to break down, causing respiratory function to decrease and the patient to experience breathlessness. Patients that suffer from emphysema have lungs that have lost their elasticity and are unable to expand and contract properly (Emphysema 1). The seriousness of emphysema can vary from patient to patient. Some people may never reach a severe point in the disease and can live relatively normal lives. In others, the disease continues to worsen until the patient can no longer breathe.
Emphysema affects almost 3 million Americans. It ranks 15th among chronic conditions that limit people, almost 44% of people with emphysema say that what they do each day is limited by the disease. It has been observed that men seem to have emphysema more often than women. The number of males that had emphysema in 2001 was 40% higher than the number of females that had the disease (American Lung Assoc. 1-2).
There are symptoms of emphysema that can be used to diagnose it. The early symptoms are shortness of breath, a chronic cough, cyanosis, shortness of breath, and mild wheezing. Other symptoms that may be seen are dizziness, difficulty lying down, anxiety, stress, impotence, fatigue, lack of concentration, excessive sleepiness during the day, difficult sleeping at night, or staying asleep. Often, a patient with emphysema can breathe in, but breathing out is very hard to do (Emphysema 1). .
The normal lung has elastic fibers that allow the lung to expand and contract. When a chemical balance is altered within the lung, the lung loses the ability to stretch and contract. A patient that has emphysema suffers from this chemical imbalance (American Lung Assoc. 2). There are many reasons a person develops emphysema. Smoking is the main cause of this disease.
