Skip to main content

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
  • 48 Accesses

Definition

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common, preventable, and treatable disease that is characterized by persistent respiratory symptoms and airflow limitation due to airway and/or alveolar abnormalities, usually caused by significant exposure to noxious particles or gases (GOLD Update 2019).

The terms emphysema and chronic bronchitis (Medical Research Council Committee on the Aetiology of Chronic Bronchitis 1965) are commonly incorrectly used in defining COPD. Emphysema is a destruction of the alveolus, which are the gas-exchanging surfaces of the lung (also called parenchyma). This pathological term is often used clinically; however, it describes only one of several structural abnormalities present in COPD. On the other hand, chronic bronchitis is defined as the presence of cough and sputum production for at least 3 months in each of two consecutive years (Medical Research Council Committee on the Aetiology of Chronic Bronchitis). This is a clinically and...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

References

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ane Arbillaga-Etxarri .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Section Editor information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Arbillaga-Etxarri, A. (2020). Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). In: Gu, D., Dupre, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_815-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_815-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69892-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69892-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics