Combo Therapy (Essay Sample)

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Combo Therapy
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is an ailment that makes it hard for an individual to inhale and exhale. Some doctors describe it as a collection of lung ailments, such as asthma. The reason why they refer to it as progressive is because it gets worse over time. The article states that COPD is the third leading cause of death in the globe. Over time, the patient struggles to find his or her breath. In order to understand the disease, one has to be familiar with how lungs work. When one breathes in, the air goes into the bronchi. Bronchi branches to bronchioles, smaller tubes within the lungs. It then ends up in the alveoli, small pockets in the lungs.
The alveoli have walls that allow oxygen to pass through and enter the blood stream via a gaseous exchange process. Carbon dioxide from the body also moves from the capillaries into the sacs. For gaseous exchange to take place perfectly, the air spaces must have some elasticity. When one has COPD, less air moves in and out than before. One reason is that the air sacs and airways become inelastic. The second reason is that walls of the air sacs stop functioning normally. Symptoms of COPD include coughs with sputum, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and wheezing. Causes of COPD include smoking, exposure to chemical fumes at work, and air pollution. Dennis Thompson’s, article Combo Therapy Best for COPD: Study speaks about treatment of the disease. It summarizes a study that scientists conducted to analyze the effects of combined drug therapy on the management of the disease (Thompson 1). They examined patients who undergone combination drugs therapy and those that went through regular treatment.
Routine treatment for COPD involves prescription of long-acting beta agonist. The beta agonist relaxes the airway muscles, which widens and enables the patient to breathe easily. If the beta agonist fails to produce results, the doctor prescribes inhaled corticosteroid. The corticosteroid reduces elimination in the airways. The report illustrated that those who went through a combination of inhaled corticosteroids and long-acting beta agonists, reduced the possibility of lying in a hospital bed due to breathing difficulties (Thompson, 1). In contrast, patients who went through one of the two treatment methods had a high chance of lying in a hospital bed for the aforementioned reasons. According to the article, the findings contradict the COPD guidelines, whereby patients should first go through the treatment of long-acting agonists. If that fails to work, the procedures state that the doctor should prescribe inhaled corticosteroid.
The study confirmed that more...