COPD Flashcards
Describe Mr Craven
- present shortness of breath, catching breath, climbing stairs at home hairs , running for bus is hard, running for bus, slower pace on flat, no cough of phlegm or blood
- Spirometer
- Both parents smokers
- Chest infection so took amoxicillin
- 30 pack year smoking history
What are causes of breathlessness?
- Lung Conditions
- Heart Conditions
- Anxiety
- Being Unfit
Describe lung conditions
- Lung conditions cause breathlessness in different ways.
- Some conditions cause the airways to become inflamed and narrowed, or fill the airways with phlegm, so it’s harder for air to move in and out of the lungs.
- Others make the lungs stiff and less elastic so it’s harder for them to expand and fill with air.
What lung conditions cause long term (chronic) breathlessness?
- chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) asthma
- interstitial lung disease (ILD), including pulmonary fibrosis
bronchiectasis - industrial or occupational lung diseases such as asbestosis, which is caused by being exposed to asbestos
- lung cancer
What are some lung conditions can also cause short-term (acute) breathlessness?
a flare-up of asthma or COPD
1. a pulmonary embolism or blood clot on the lung
2. a lung infection such as pneumonia or tuberculosis
3 .a pneumothorax or collapsed lung
4. a build-up of fluid in your lungs or the lining of your lungs – this might be because your heart is failing to pump efficiently or may be because of liver disease, cancer or infection
Describe heart problems
Some people may experience long-term breathlessness due to heart failure.
- This can be due to problems with the rhythm, valves or cardiac muscles of the heart.
- Heart failure can cause breathlessness because the heart is not able to increase its pumping strength in response to exercise, or because the lungs become congested and filled with fluid. -Often this is worse when lying flat so breathlessness due to heart failure can be worse at night or when asleep.
What are some heart conditions that cause acute breathlessness include?
- a heart attack
2 .an abnormal heart rhythm. -You might feel your heart misses beats or you might experience palpitations
Describe anxiety
-Some people feel short of breath when they’re anxious or afraid.
-This is a normal responseby your body to what you think is a stressful situation – your body is preparing for action.
-As you get more anxious, you may start to breathe faster and tense your breathing muscles.
-Your physical health can also impact on your mental health, especially if you are living with a lung condition.
=You might get anxious if you don’t feel in control of your condition. And if you have a condition, you may have symptoms that make you feel anxious.
-Sometimes the symptoms - like breathlessness, tightness in your chest or getting tired very easily - are similar to feelings of anxiety.
What is a panic attack?
- When your body’s normal response is exaggerated, you get a rapid build-up of physical responses.
- This is a panic attack.
- As your body tries to take in more oxygen, your breathing quickens.
- Your body also releases hormones so your heart beats faster and your muscles tense.
What happens in a panic attack?
During a panic attack, you might feel you can’t breathe and:
1. have a pounding heart
2. feel faint
3. sweat
4. feel sick
5. have shaky limbs
6. feel you’re not connected to your body
Panic attacks can be very frightening if you feel you can’t breathe.
Describe being unfit
When we are unfit, our muscles get weaker.
This includes the muscles we use to breathe. Weaker muscles need more oxygen to work, so the weaker our muscles, the more breathless we feel.
How can being an unhealthy weight make us feel breathless?
- If you’re underweight, your breathing muscles will be weaker.
- If you’re overweight, it takes more effort to breathe and move around. Having more weight around the chest and abdomen restricts how much your lungs can move.If you have a body mass indexof25 or more, you’re more likely to get breathless compared to people with a healthy weight.
What happens to people who are severely overweight?
- People who are severely overweight can develop obesity hypoventilation syndrome.
- This is when poor breathing leads to lower oxygen levels and higher carbon dioxide levels in their blood.
What are some other reasons for long term breathlessness?
- smoking
- conditions that affect how your muscles work, such asmuscular dystrophy, myasthenia gravis or motor neurone disease
- postural conditions that alter the shape of your spine, and affect how your ribs and how your lungs expand. For example scoliosis and kyphosis
- anaemia, when a lack of iron in the body leads to few red blood cells
- kidney disease
- thyroid disease
What happens when you visit the doctor?
- You may not actually feel out of breath when you see your doctor - you’ll be sitting down and may have only walked a short distance.
- So think about how you’ll describe your breathlessness. Maybe bring someone with you who can help.
- Your doctor should show you the MRC breathlessness scale to help describe how breathless you get.
What is the MRC breathlessness scale?
- The scale health care professionals usually use to measure breathlessness is the Medical Research Council (MRC) breathlessness scale
- The MRC scale does not recognise other aspects of breathlessness – such as how you think or feel about getting out of breath.
- It shows what your breathlessness stops you doing.
- Your grade is the one that describes you when you’re at your best.
What are the grades in MRC breathlessness scale?
1: not troubled by breathlessness except on strenuous excursive
2: Short of breath when hurrying on the level or walking up a slight hill
3: Walks sower than most people on the level, stops after a mile or so, or stops after 15 mins walking past own pace
4: stops for breath after walking about 100 yards or after a few mins on level ground
5: too breathless to leave house or breathless when undressing
What should the doctor also hear?
- what you used to be able to do that you can’t do any more
- what people of your age around you do that you think you should be able to do
- what your personal goals are for your day-to-day activity
You might find it useful to use local landmarks such as bus stops, shops and hills to help you describe these things.
If you have a phone with a camera, you could record the sort of activities that make you out of breath so you can show your doctor what it looks or sounds like.
What doctors could you ask as the doctor?
- How long have you been feeling breathless and how quickly did it come on?
- Does it come and go or is it there all the time?
- Is there any pattern to your breathlessness?
- Does it start or get worse at any particular time of day?
- Does it come on or get worse when you lie flat?
- Does anything bring it on? For example, pollen, pets or medication?
- Do you smoke?
- Do you also have a cough, or bring up phlegm?
- Do you get chest pain, palpitations or ankle swelling?
- How active are you usually?
- What’s your job or occupation?
- Is your breathlessness related to certain times at work?
- Do you have a history of heart, lung or thyroid disease or of anaemia?
- Have you made any changes in your life because of your shortness of breath?
- Do you feel worried or frightened, depressed or hopeless?
- What have you done to help you cope with the way you’re feeling?
What tests would the doctor do?
- do some breathing and lung function tests
- check the number of breaths you take every minute, listen to your chest, and look and feel how your chest moves as you breathe
- check your heart rate and rhythm and check if fluid is building up in your ankles or lungs
- check your blood pressure and temperature
- check your height, weight, waist and body mass index
- examine your head, neck and armpits to see if your lymph glands are swollen
- look at your eyes, nails, skin and joints
- check your blood oxygen levels with a pulse oximeter
What extra tests may they do?
- a chest X-ray
- a spirometry test
- an electrocardiogram or ECG. If your breathlessness is intermittent you might be asked to wear a portable recorder for 24 hours, or seven days, to record your heart’s electrical activity
- an echocardiogram. This is a non-invasive ultrasound of your heart which can tell how well it’s working.
- blood tests to detect anaemia, allergies or any thyroid, liver, kidney or heart problems
How long would it take to get a diagnosis?
- Getting a diagnosis for daily long-term breathlessness can take some time.
- Your health care professional must consider all possible causes.
- You may need to take repeated tests and try various treatments before the cause is identified.
What investigations would they do in emergency admission?
- Chest radiography - to look for signs of heart failure and pulmonary pathology (including pleural effusion).
- Electrocardiography (ECG) - to look for signs of heart failure, arrhythmia, and pulmonary embolism.
- Spirometry - to look for signs of obstructive airway disease or a restrictive pattern associated with interstitial lung disease (such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, sarcoidosis, pneumoconiosis, or extrinsic allergic alveolitis).
- Full blood count - to check for anaemia.
- Urea and electrolytes, and random blood glucose level - to test for renal failure and diabetes as causes of metabolic acidosis and breathlessness.
- Thyroid function tests - to detect thyroid disease as a cause of breathlessness.
- B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP)or N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NTproBNP) - to assess for heart failure.
If initial investigations do not identify the cause of breathlessness
-Reassess for risk factors and clinical features ofpulmonary embolism. If this is suspected, arrange urgent referral for further investigations.
How do you distinguish asthma from COPD?
- Smoking history - almost always present in people with COPD.
- Age - usually older than 35 years of age for COPD.
- Chronic productive cough - common with COPD, uncommon with asthma.
- Breathlessness - progressive with COPD, variable with asthma.
- Variability of symptoms - common with asthma, uncommon with COPD.
- Night time wakening with wheeze and breathlessness - common with asthma, uncommon with COPD.
What are other distinguishers?
-If asthma and COPD cannot be distinguished based on clinical features, consider the following:
a large response (greater than 400 mL) to bronchodilators or prednisolone (30 mg orally per day, for 14 days) is characteristic of asthma.
-If FEV1 and the FEV1/FVC ratio return to normal with drug therapy, clinically significantly COPD is not present.
-Significant diurnal or day-to-day variability of serial peak flow measurements suggest asthma.
If doubt still remains, refer the person for a specialist’s opinion.
-For people with COPD, arrange chest radiography to exclude other serious lung pathology (such as lung cancer) and check the full blood count to identify anaemia or polycythaemia.
What do you do if suspected heart failure?
- Perform an ECG for all people with suspected heart failure.
- For people without a history of MI, check B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) or N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NTproBNP) and refer to specialist assessment and echocardiography appropriately if raised above agreed levels for referral.
- For people with a history of MI, refer directly for urgent specialist assessment (to be seen within 2 weeks)
What do you do for suspect bronchiectasis?
- Arrange chest radiography to exclude other causes for the symptoms
- Refer all people with suspected bronchiectasis to a respiratory specialist for confirmation of the diagnosis (by high resolution computed tomography scanning).
- See CKS topic Bronchiectasis
What happens if suspected lung/pleural cancer?
- Arrange an urgent chest X-ray (to be performed within 2 weeks) in people aged 40 years and over with breathlessness if:
- They have ever smoked; or
- They have been exposed to asbestos; or
- They have any of the following unexplained symptoms; cough, fatigue, chest pain, weight loss, appetite loss
When else should an urgent chest X-ray (to be performed within 2 weeks) should also be consideredin people aged 40 years and over?
- Persistent or recurrent chest infection.
- Finger clubbing.
3 .Supraclavicular lymphadenopathy or persistent cervical lymphadenopathy. - Chest signs consistent with lung cancer or pleural disease.
- Thrombocytosis.
- Suspected abdominal splinting secondary to ascites.
- Arrange an abdominal ultrasound scan to confirm the presence of ascites and to exclude or confirm liver cirrhosis and peritoneal cancer.
- Arrange other investigations guided by clinical findings (for example liver function tests or erythrocyte sedimentation rate; for signs of cancer).
- Awaiting results of investigations should not delay urgent referralif cancer is suspected.
What are the possible respiratory differential diagnosis?
- Asthma
- COPD
- Pulmonary fibrosis
- Lung Cancer
- Pulmonary embolism
- Pneumothorax
- Lower respiratory tract infection
What are the possible cardiovascular / systemic differential diagnosis?
- Congestive heart failure
- Pulmonary oedema
- Valvular defects
- Acute coronary syndrome
- Anaemia
- Renal or liver failure
- Deconditioning
- Arrythmia
- Postural conditions e.g. scoliosis
- Conditions affects muscles
What happens in obstructive chronic bronchitis?
- Inflammation and swelling further narrows airway
2. Thick and sticky mucus blocks up the airways rather than clears
What happens in emphysema?
- Air becomes trapped
2. Air exchange becomes difficult in damaged alveoli
What are the signs of hyperinflation?
- More than 7 anterior rubs visible in mid clavicular line (although this is not particularly sensitive)
- Flattening of the diaphragm (may be more sensitive sign)
- Heart may appear small and arrow sometimes with air visible below the inferior border (floating hear sign)
What are bullae?
- Air filled applies with thin walls, bordered only by remnants of alveolar septa or pleura
- Often caused by emphysema
How to look for bullae?
- Areas of low density (black = lots of air
- May be outlined resembling bubbles