LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Emphysema: Patients
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Emphysema is a serious and chronic disease that cannot be reversed. If detected early, the effects and progression can be slowed, particularly if the patient stops smoking immediately. Complications of emphysema include higher risks for pneumonia and acute bronchitis. Overall, the prognosis for patients with emphysema is poor, with a survival rate for all those with COPD of four years, and even less for emphysema. However, individual cases vary and many patients can live much longer with supplemental oxygen and other treatment measures.
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Emphysema is a serious and chronic disease. It cannot be cured or reversed. However, early treatment can slow the progress of the disease. It can ... help to prevent its most serious complications. Overall, the survival rate of patients diagnosed with emphysema is about four years. However, that prognosis is dependent on a variety of factors.
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Emphysema can become terminal and in such cases, the patient begins to lose weight as eating becomes difficult, and all the energy that can be mustered is spent trying to breathe through the damaged lungs. The slightest cold or respiratory burden, and even the use of mild sedatives is enough to cause respiratory failure. In some cases, a mechanical ventilator becomes necessary.
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Emphysema develops slowly. Slight morning and evening difficulty in breathing may be followed sometime later with shortness of breath that interferes with normal activities. A short walk may be enough to bring on breathlessness and walking up stairs is difficult. Eventually, as the lungs become less and less able to carry out inhaling, exhaling and gas exchange, there may come a point when every breath requires a major effort and the patient is disabled and unable to carry out normal activities.
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Emphysema is an irreversible degenerative condition. The most important measure to slow its progression is for the patient to stop smoking and avoid all exposure to cigarette smoke and lung irritants. Pulmonary rehabilitation can be very helpful to optimize the patient's quality of life and teach the patient how to actively manage his or her care.
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Emphysema patients are sometimes referred to as "pink puffers". This is because emphysema sufferers may hyperventilate to maintain adequate blood oxygen levels. Hyperventilation explains why mild emphysema patients do not appear cyanotic as chronic bronchitis (another COPD disorder) sufferers often do; hence they are "pink puffers" (able to maintain almost normal blood gases through hyperventilation) and not "blue bloaters" (cyanosis; inadequate oxygen in the blood). However, any severely chronically obstructed (COPD) respiratory disease will result in hypoxia (decreased blood partial pressure of oxygen) and hypercapnia (increased blood partial pressure of Carbon Dioxide); so called Blue Bloaters. Blue Bloaters are so named as they have almost normal ventilatory drive (due to decreased sensitivity to carbon dioxide secondary to chronic hypercapnia), are plethoric (red face/cheeks due to a polycythemia secondary to chronic hypoxia) and cyanotic (due to decreased hemoglobin saturation).
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