Emphysema vs. Asthma Assignment

Emphysema vs. Asthma Assignment

Compare and contrast the two, complications, what populations get either, and treatment

It’s possible to have symptoms of both asthma and COPD. ACO isn’t a separate disease. The name is a way to acknowledge the mix of symptoms.

It’s not clear what causes ACO. Having COPD for a long time may change the way your lungs work and make you more likely to get it. Or it might start if you smoke while you have asthma. It may also happen for reasons no one has figured out yet.

It’s important to find and treat ACO because it can be more serious than having either condition alone. There’s no cure, but you and your doctor can work together to help you breathe and live better.

Who’s Likely to Have Asthma, COPD, or ACO?
People who smoke or breathe in pollution or chemicals at work for many years have higher chances of having COPD. That’s why the condition often starts in middle age or later in life.

Asthma is sometimes caused by gene changes that are passed down through families. If one of your parents has the disease, you’re more likely to have it.

Symptoms of asthma often start in childhood, and the condition is one of the most widespread long-term illnesses in kids. It affects about 1 in 10 children.

Besides a family history of the condition, a few things can raise your chances of asthma:

Allergies
Lung infections
Smoking
Being around chemicals or other irritants in the air
People who get ACO tend to be over 40 but younger than people with just COPD, and they have allergies (or have family members with them).

Asthma-COPD Link
Researchers now know that childhood asthma greatly raises your chances for having COPD later on. Although many kids outgrow

their asthma, some have lungs that don’t mature the way they should or work as well compared with people who’ve never had asthma.

Experts think asthma either causes COPD or is one of the factors that make COPD more likely in adulthood.

That’s especially true for kids who have “persistent childhood asthma.” Those children have trouble breathing almost every day. One study found that 11% of kids who had this kind of severe asthma had COPD as young adults.

What’s more, 3 out of 4 children with persistent asthma showed signs of lower lung capacity or growth by their early 20s. That could put them on a path to get COPD later. Boys are much more likely than girls to have problems with their lungs.

More research is needed to see if and which kind of treatment may help prevent childhood asthma from turning into COPD.

Symptoms
Since asthma and COPD both make your airways swell, they both can cause:

Shortness of breath
Cough
Wheezing
One main difference is that asthma typically causes attacks of wheezing and tightness in your chest. COPD symptoms are usually more constant and can include a cough that brings up phlegm.

If you have ACO, you may also have:

Flare-ups or times when symptoms get worse but usually get better with medicine that opens your airways, like a bronchodilator
Neutrophils or eosinophils (white blood cells linked to inflammation) in your spit
With ACO, you’ll have more symptoms than with asthma or COPD alone, and you’ll have more severe attacks more often. You’ll need to go to the hospital more. But someone with ACO may have a better outlook than with COPD alone.

Diagnosis
To figure out which condition you have, your doctor will start with a physical exam and questions about your medical history. They’ll look at your nose and throat and listen to your lungs with a stethoscope. They’re likely to ask about things like:

Your symptoms
If you have a family history of asthma or allergies
If you smoke or are around secondhand smoke
If you work around chemicals or other things that can irritate your lungs
Your doctor will also want to do a test called spirometry that checks how well your lungs work. You’ll blow into a mouthpiece, and a machine will measure how much air you can blow out and how fast you can do it.

If your doctor thinks you have asthma, they might ask you to breathe in a medicine called a bronchodilator and take the spirometry test again. If you have asthma, your lungs should work better after you take the medicine.

Another way to diagnose asthma is with a challenge test. You breathe in an asthma trigger like a strong scent or the drug methacholine. Then you take a spirometry test to see if your airways have narrowed. Weaker airflow afterward can be a sign that you have asthma.

If you had severe asthma as a kid or have a child who does, doctors recommend a spirometry test every year. The test may catch signs of a lung problem or early symptoms of COPD so you can get treated.

Tests used to diagnose COPD may also include:

Chest X-ray. This uses radiation in low doses to make images of your lungs.
Arterial blood gas test. This measures how much oxygen is in your blood. COPD can make your blood oxygen level drop.
If you have a fairly even mix of traits from both asthma and COPD, you may have ACO.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource