COPD: Life Expectancy, Symptom Assessment, Fatigue, Constipation, and Social Considerations

COPD
Table of Content
PART 1............................................................................................................................................1
1. Five-year life-expectancy........................................................................................................1
2 Multi dimension symptom requires multi dimension assessment............................................2
3 Functional impacts of fatigue..................................................................................................2
4 Constipation assessment...........................................................................................................3
5 Social element consideration when Marg return home............................................................3
PART 2............................................................................................................................................4
6. Multidisciplinary team during Marg's hospitalisation.............................................................4
7. Management of Marg's fatigue...............................................................................................4
8. Management of Marg's Constipation.......................................................................................5
9. Marg's discharge and care at home..........................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

PART 1
1. Five-year life-expectancy
COPD is stand for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, it is a lung disease in which
the tissues in the lungs damage which result in constriction of airways and cause difficulty in
breathing. The life expectancy and severity of COPD is determined by Global Initiatives on
Obstructive Lung Disease or GOLD. The value of GOLD is determined by using an instrument
called spirometer. The procedure involve in GOLD are that how much air can forcefully exhale
in one second after blowing through spirometer. The classification of COPD severity is based on
GOLD and there has four stage such as:
GOLD 1: Mild COPD the FEV1 value is more than or equal to 80%.
GOLD 2: Moderate COPD the FEV1 value is in between 50 to 79%.
GOLD 3: Severe emphysema or chronic bronchitis the FEV1 value is in between 30 to 49%.
GOLD 4: Very severe COPD the FEV1 value is less than 30%.
From the given classification, it is concluded that the Marg's conditions is very severe
because she used to smoke a lot and smoking is the main cause of COPD. The person who
smoke or a habit of smoking may drop their life expectancy as:
 Stage 1: 0.3 years
 Stage 2: 2.2 years
 Stage 3: 5.8 years
 Stage 4: 5.8 years
Figure 1: Illustration of 5 year's life expectancy of COPD
1

It is concluded that after 5years marg's will die because she was a habitual smoker (Rigby.,
(2021)).
2 Multi dimension symptom requires multi dimension assessment
The individual who experience multiple symptom can need a multiple assessment in
order to give proper treatment. In case of Marg's, she need multiple assessment as she experience
multiple symptom like shortness in breathing, experience chronic cough, weight loss,
constipation, tremors in hand and many other symptom she experienced. After diagnosis it is
concluded that she had a severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease due to which she
experience difficulty in breathing as well as felt severe chest pain. But still there is need to assist
the patient if the symptoms explained by her are because prevalence of some other disorder like
chest pain occur may be due to cardiac arrest, coronary artery syndrome so there is need to do
ECG, chest x-ray. Weight loss may occur due to decrease in immunity, thyroid as thyroid
symptom also include weight loss or any additional effects, diagnosis of which is necessary to
conduct. Yellow productive may be due to bronchitis infection as it cause irritation and
infalmation in the lungs. Shortness in breathing may be due to cardiac arrest, asthma, covid-19.
She need multiple assessment because of multiple symptoms she experienced (DeMeo et.al.,
(2018)).
3 Functional impacts of fatigue
Fatigue is refers to tiredness which result from mental or physical exertion or illness.
Marg's is 80 year old patient, at her age person experience fatigue because their low immune
system. As person not able to consume enough food which is required for maintain health. Due
to low intake of food or nutrition person experience weakness or tiredness. In case of Marg's,
when she visited to general practitioner, she complained that she does not feel like to work or she
feel exhausted after working for a while. Even at rest she increased breathlessness as well as loss
her weight day by day. While proactive analysis of her symptom as she experience weight loss,
fatigue, difficult in breathing, decrease in muscle strength as well as airflow obstruction. These
all the most prevalent or prominent issue in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Fatigue
assessment can be done by identify consequences fatigue scale it is self-report tool in which the
assessment of fatigue is done by five domain and two summary. The domain includes feeling of
fatigue, feeling of forcefulness, impacts on concentration, impact on energy as well as impacts
on daily activities. The summary includes fatigue experience and fatigue impact.
2