Emphysema: Effects and Contributing Factors (Case Study Sample)

Case Study: Emphysema
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Case Study: Emphysema
This case study will discuss Mr. Smith, a 65-year-old Caucasian male a patient with emphysema. Mr. Smith lives with his wife at home. He complains of shortness of breath made worse on exertion and when coming up and down the stairs. He has a 30-pack-year history of cigarette smoking. Mr. Smith has encountered several episodes of pneumonia and bronchitis over the past three years. He now cannot carry out the activities that he used to. For instance, he mentions that he can no longer go for his usual jogging in the morning without running out of breath.
Emphysema is a subtype of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is a common respiratory illness that is characterized by airflow limitation (Buist et al., 2017). The other subtypes of COPD include chronic bronchitis and chronic obstructive asthma. Emphysema is a pathological term which describes some of the structural changes that are sometimes associated with COPD which include abnormal and permanent enlargement of the airspaces that are distal to the terminal bronchioles followed by destruction of the airspace walls, without obvious fibrosis that is, there is no fibrosis that can be seen by the naked eye (Hopkinson et al., 2019). Omitting obvious fibrosis was intended to differentiate the destruction of the alveolar as a result of emphysema from the one caused by interstitial pneumonia (Hopkinson et al., 2019). But, numerous studies have found increased collagen in the lungs of patients having mild COPD, which is an indication that fibrosis can be a component of emphysema (McDonough et al., 2016). The pathogenesis of emphysema is thought to result from an imbalance of proteases and antiproteases in the lower respiratory tract such that the level of proteases exceeds the antiprotease protection, making it possible for the proteolytic destruction of the connective tissue matrix that gives the architectural support for the alveolar walls (Rennard et al., 2014). Even though emphysema can occur in people with no airflow obstruction, it occurs commonly in patients with moderate to severe airflow obstruction (Rennard et al., 2014). The different types