Describe the effects of emphysema and how it permanently impairs the lungs.?

Answer 1

To put it in simple words; emphysema stops the ability of the lungs to exchange oxygen (inhalation) for carbon dioxide (exaltation).
There are different levels. Needless to say, smoking is a major contributor to this illness.

Answer 2

This isn't a scientific answer. This is a REALISTIC answer.

My grandfather has Emphysema. LUCKILY, he's not on oxygen (though it's not like the doctor hasn't tried! My grandpa is just stubborn!), but he has trouble getting up and down the stairs. He no longer can walk over his farm, and instead has to spend most of his time watching others farm FOR him. He CAN do tractor work and such, but he doesn't because he'd be s.o.l. if he got stuck.

He started smoking when he was around 12. He stopped when my father was a young boy. My father is now 51. And smoking for about 10-12 years gave my grandfather Emphysema. It also put his brother (who STILL smokes for who knows WHAT reason) on an oxygen tank. It eventually killed 2 of his other brothers, one of whom had Emphysema and was on oxygen before he died. His sister, the only one NOT to smoke, is the only one who is completely healthy. The sad thing is, they have a tendency towards long life, and he'll be living the rest of his life with it.

Answer 3

Emphysema is to lungs like intense wear to a piece of cloth- it loses substance, becomes transparent, starts breaking, falling apart. In emphysema, alveolar walls (the spongy tissue that forms lungs) get destroyed. So the mesh becomes rarified, weakened. Not only this; within those alveolar walls run the capillaries(tiniest blood vessels) that get oxygen from alveoli (little spaces in the lungs) into the blood. When the walls get destroyed, so do their capillaries. And the person gets "barrel chested" because this rarefied lung tissue loses elasticity and is more expanded than normal (think of an old elastic band that no longer fits because it's permanently stretched and then the garment falls down)

Because of the decrease in number of capillaries, oxygen does not reach circulation so easily, and the person feels short of breath. To make things worse, emphysema is progressive.

To prevent it: don't smoke , or if you smoke, please quit.

Answer 4

There is a website called WebMD and it will help you to understand just about everything there is to do with emphysema. The website is very user friendly and you can ask questions which will be answered by an RN. Emphysema is a very ugly disease that slowly kills a person. My prayers are with you and your family. God Bless!!

Answer 5

My mother smoked from the mid 40's to the mid 80's when she began a serious decline. Very slowed, had to stop several times to get up any staircase. I had begged her to quit as a child in the 60's because they were starting to run some PSA's and I couldn't stand to think I might lose my mama. But I was wrong about what I imagined would happen... you know she would just get sick and die young, a quick death. No, death took about 20 years it pretty much ruined most of her activities in adult life. By the mid 90's she was miserable with emphysema and her heart and colon began to deteriorate because of this. She had congestive heart failure and almost died several times. She stopped breathing in my car once and I had to pull her limp body out, her face was blue and her heart had stopped. I breathed into her mouth and compressed her chest multiple times and she came back. She colapsed once in my kitchen in a puddle of blood. She ultimately had part of her colon removed in 98 and finally died in 2003.

I walked from the hospital the day she died and many visitors and patients stood around the entrance puffing furiously. I wanted to slap the cigarettes from thier mouths.