Often, patients live with mild COPD for several decades before the disease progresses to moderate or severe. However, each patient is unique. Although it is not as common, some COPD cases quickly progress from mild to moderate in just a few months.
Especially if your COPD is diagnosed early, if you have mild stage COPD, and your disease is well managed and controlled, you may be able to live for 10 or even 20 years after diagnosis.
Many people will live into their 70s, 80s, or 90s with COPD.” But that's more likely, he says, if your case is mild and you don't have other health problems like heart disease or diabetes. Some people die earlier as a result of complications like pneumonia or respiratory failure.
Most of the time, the condition will worsen slowly, and the symptoms will gradually become more severe. Sometimes, however, a lung infection may accelerate its progression and quickly bring on more severe symptoms.
Often, patients live with mild COPD for several decades before the disease progresses to moderate or severe. However, each patient is unique. Although it is not as common, some COPD cases quickly progress from mild to moderate in just a few months.
Whilst there is currently no cure for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), evidence shows that early diagnosis, combined with disease management programs, can reduce the impact COPD, improve quality of life, slow disease progression, reduce mortality and keep you out of hospital.
There's currently no cure for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but treatment can help slow the progression of the condition and control the symptoms.
Definition of mild COPD
The most common presenting symptom is dyspnea with exertion or chronic cough with or without sputum production. Other (but more infrequent) symptoms include chest pain, orthopnea and wheezing. However, there is also a group of patients with abnormal spirometry but are otherwise asymptomatic.
Walking is a safe and effective form of exercise for nearly everyone, including people living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Your physician will determine your stage based on results from a breathing test called a spirometry, which assesses lung function by measuring how much air you can breathe in and out and how quickly and easily you can exhale. They will also consider the severity of your symptoms and the frequency of flare-ups.
Inhaled bronchodilators (alone or in combination) have become the cornerstone of treatment for symptomatic patients with COPD, either as initial/first-line treatment or for second-line treatment in patients with persistent symptoms or exacerbations despite monotherapy [1,6,7,8].
Some people can live with mild or moderate COPD for decades. Other people may be diagnosed with more advanced COPD and progress to very severe disease much faster. Some of this boils down to genetics. But some of it is due to how much you smoke or smoked and the level of lung irritants you are exposed to.
COPD is terminal. People with COPD who do not die from another condition will usually die from COPD. Until 2011, the Global Initiative for Obstructive Lung Disease assessed the severity and stage of COPD using only forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1).
By improving your lifestyle, you can live a long and full life with COPD. A common misinterpretation is that 'Chronic' means really bad or extreme rather than long term. Individuals who exercise more and maintain a healthy weight can experience less severe symptoms and enjoy a better quality of life.
Method: Qualitative analysis using the framework approach of in-depth interviews with 25 carers of COPD patients who had died in the preceding 3–10 months. Results: The average age of death was 77.4 years.
COPD is a chronic and progressive disease. While it is possible to slow progress and reduce symptoms, it is impossible to cure the disease, and it will gradually worsen over time.
An estimate has been provided by BODE and GOLD staging systems, according to which, Approximately 80 percent of the patients with mild emphysema lived more than four years after the diagnosis. 60 to 70 percent of patients with moderate emphysema were alive after four years.
Stage 2 COPD life expectancy is 2.2 years.
Stage 2 (moderate) COPD: You may experience persistent coughing and phlegm (often worse in the morning), increased shortness of breath, tiredness, sleep problems, or wheezing. About one in five people have exacerbations that worsen their symptoms and cause the color of their phlegm to change.
COPD is diagnosed using a simple breathing test called spirometry.