The Major Behavioral Risk Factor for COPD
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the condition that affects patients’ lower airways and lungs and seriously damaging their respiratory systems. The major signs and consequences of COPD are the shortness of breath that appears alongside such symptoms as progressive coughing with the production of sputum, as well as the inflammatory processes in lower airways of a chronic nature (Herath & Poole, 2013).
The aforementioned inflammatory processes tend to be caused by the frequent inhalation of chemical substances that harm the respiratory system (Herath & Poole, 2013). Under the effect of COPD, the lower airways become narrower due to which the shortness of breath appears (Han, Stoller, & Hollingsworth, 2015). The narrow airways prevent the substantial amount of oxygen from getting in the patients’ blood. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease can be prevented by medical treatments and changes in behavior.
During the course, it was mentioned that the greatest behavioral risk factor for COPD is smoking. This point of view is supported by the research that was carried out by van Leupoldt, Fritzsche, Trueba, Meuret, and Ritz (2012); the authors specified that tobacco smoking remains the major risk factor for this condition, as well as a poor prognosis for the patients; however, the researchers also pointed out that regardless of this information, about 43% of patients suffering from COPD of mild to high severity, continue their harmful habit.
Moreover, Annesi-Maesano and Roche (2014) reviewed and explored other behavioral factors that could potentially contribute to the development or prevention of COPD such as dietary choices of the patients, their physical activity, and biological predisposition and concluded that diets had very little to no impact on the development of the condition while predisposition and physical activity could be considered the factors aiding the improvement of health in treatments for COPD. However, the cessation of tobacco smoking or exposure to any other inhaled harmful substances is the key aspect of any COPD treatment (Michigan BRFS, 2013).
Fabbri (2016) proposed treating smoking as the disease instead of focusing on addressing its consequences such as COPD and several other dangerous conditions. Also, the researcher stated that there exists a very strong connection between the period for which an individual has been a smoker and their risk of developing these conditions one of which is COPD (Fabbri, 2016). This approach sounds very reasonable; however, as specified earlier, even the diagnosed condition does not serve as a motivator for almost a half of all the population of smokers diagnosed with COPD to discontinue their habit (van Leupoldt et al., 2012). In that way, likely, motivating the existing smokers who have not been diagnosed with COPD to quit their habit for the sake of preventing the development of this (and many other related conditions) would not be very successful.
However, it may make sense to develop the smoking cessation programs and alternatives that could be accomplished more easily so that more smokers succeeded at quitting. Realizing the seriousness of COPD as one of the most prevalent public health issues globally, Kumar and Vijayan (2012) presented a list of options that smokers who would like to but struggle to stop smoking could use to help their conditions and improve their health. Such options include counseling, pharmacotherapy, nicotine replacement therapy, and the use of other drugs (such as anxiolytics, anorectics, and antidepressants to name a few) helping to combat the challenging effects of the cessation.
References
Annesi-Maesano, I., & Roche, N. (2014). Healthy behaviours and COPD. European Respiratory Review, 23, 410-415. Web.
Fabbri, L. M. (2016).Smoking, not COPD, as the disease. The New England Journal of Medicine, 374(19), 1885-1886. Web.
Herath S. C., & Poole, P. (2015). Prophylactic antibiotic therapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) Review. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Web.
Han, M. K., Stoller, J. K., & Hollingsworth, H. (2015). Patient information: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) treatments (Beyond the Basics). Web.
Kumar, R., & Vijayan, V. K. (2012). Smoking cessation programs and other preventive strategies for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. JAPI, 60, 53-56. Web.
Michigan BRFS. (2013). Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) among Michigan adults. Michigan Brfss Surveillance Brief, 7(2), 1-2. Web.
von Leupoldt, A., Fritzsche, A., Trueba, A., Meuret, A., & Ritz, T. (2012). Behavioral medicine approaches to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 44(1), 52-65. Web.