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Patients may watch for symptoms, such as shortness of breath, change in character or amount of mucus, and start self-treatment as discussed with a health care provider. This allows for treatment right away until a doctor can be seen. [5] The symptoms of acute exacerbations are treated using short-acting bronchodilators.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a type of progressive lung disease characterized by chronic respiratory symptoms and airflow limitation. [8] GOLD 2024 defined COPD as a heterogeneous lung condition characterized by chronic respiratory symptoms (dyspnea or shortness of breath, cough, sputum production or exacerbations) due to abnormalities of the airways (bronchitis ...
Obstructive lung disease is a category of respiratory disease characterized by airway obstruction.Many obstructive diseases of the lung result from narrowing (obstruction) of the smaller bronchi and larger bronchioles, often because of excessive contraction of the smooth muscle itself.
Many people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have a low partial pressure of oxygen in the blood and high partial pressure of carbon dioxide.Treatment with supplemental oxygen may improve their well-being; alternatively, in some this can lead to the adverse effect of elevating the carbon dioxide content in the blood (hypercapnia) to levels that may become toxic.
Additionally, bronchitis is described as either acute or chronic depending on its presentation and is also further described by the causative agent. Acute bronchitis can be defined as acute bacterial or viral infection of the larger airways in healthy patients with no history of recurrent disease. [ 8 ]
About a third of patients will experience a fever, but fevers due to acute bronchitis rarely rise above 100 °F (37.8 °C) or last longer than a few days. [14] As fever and other systemic symptoms are less common in acute bronchitis than in pneumonia, their presence raises suspicion for the latter, [15] [16] especially high or persistent fevers ...
Acute respiratory acidosis occurs when an abrupt failure of ventilation occurs. This failure in ventilation may be caused by depression of the central respiratory center by cerebral disease or drugs, inability to ventilate adequately due to neuromuscular disease (e.g., myasthenia gravis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Guillain–Barré syndrome, muscular dystrophy), or airway obstruction ...
Asthma is a respiratory disease that can begin or worsen due to exposure at work and is characterized by episodic narrowing of respiratory airways. Occupational asthma has a variety of causes, including sensitization to a specific substance, causing an allergic response; or a reaction to an irritant that is inhaled in the workplace.