Institute for Continuing Education

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: An Update and Overview (COPD)

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Define chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and describe its cardinal clinical, physiological, and pathological features as articulated by the current GOLD report.
• Explain the prevalence of COPD globally and regionally and describe the disease's impact on morbidity, mortality, and health-care expenditure.
• Discuss the etiology of COPD, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema, and describe the principal diagnostic criteria currently used to establish the diagnosis.
• Describe the latest international standards regarding prevention, management, and treatment protocols for COPD, including both pharmacological and non-pharmacological strategies.
• Identify and discuss the major classes of medication currently used in COPD care, including mechanisms of action, indications, and common adverse effects.
• Apply evidence-based assessment tools, including spirometry, the modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) dyspnea scale, the COPD Assessment Test (CAT), and the GOLD ABE framework, to stratify disease severity and guide therapy.
• Recognize and describe the management of acute exacerbations of COPD, along with common comorbidities and end-of-life considerations relevant to the respiratory therapist's practice.

Course Information

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is one of the most common conditions in adults in developed countries. The burden of COPD is enormous in terms of direct cost to healthcare services and indirect costs to society through loss of productivity. Approximately 80-90% of COPD cases are caused by cigarette smoking; a smoker is ten times more likely than a nonsmoker to die of COPD. The remaining 10-20% of COPD cases are attributed to frequent lung infections and exposure to specific industrial pollutants.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an extremely imprecise term used to describe a wide variety of chronic respiratory conditions. In this module, the acronym COPD is used to refer to chronic bronchitis and emphysema, although much of the information is equally applicable to other conditions such as asthma, cystic fibrosis, and bronchiolitis.