Smokers With COPD That Are Oxygen Dependent - Essay Sample

Introduction

Many times as clinicians often face lots of difficulties in administering and ensuring that patients are well-taken care. The therapies that they are subjected to be well administered and observations made keenly (Schols, 1991). It's not regular to find reports of case related to COPD patients that are reported to have been under long term oxygen therapy (LTOT) termed as smokers. There are often rare cases related to smokers with this disease that has been published and brought to light about the actual cause of their death. Clinicians consider many of their patients under such situations not to have been involved in smoking.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

However, smokers with severe COPD are at a higher risk of this disease since the patients have weak lung functions and may entirely depend on the continued feeding of oxygen for them to be actively breathing. It's important to observe the different trends of patients, and this greatly helps in being able to understand their character and give greater care that they deserve. This has become a clinical concern since there has been an increased number of deaths due to this condition since many smokers depending on oxygen feeding succumb to various effects of the disease. The increased administering of oxygen to these smokers lead to accumulated carbon dioxide in the blood leading to drowsiness due to respiratory acidosis and eventually death (Schols, 1991).

Through an understanding of the smokers, it helps the clinicians involved with the patients in being able to fully understand their needs and ensure that they are provided with the required treatment and are not subjected to too much of the oxygen they require. At times the oxygen that the patients are given helps in accelerating the rate at which burning takes place which has contributed to a more significant percentage of the motility rates of the COPD patients. Most of the researchers have not mentioned this in their research. However, this is as a result of the need for the patients under this therapy to have faith and trust that it would eventually help cure their condition.

Patients who have the severe COPD at times are advised to quit smoking since the increased inhalation or exposure to smoke leads to adverse effects of the entire lungs that cause difficulty in breathing, coughing and may lead to wheezing in most of the patients. Through the patients not being involved in smoking, it helps in reducing the rates at which the symptoms of COPD become severe to the patients. However, continued cigarette smoking continuously affect the patient slowly, and there would be no noticeable changes even though they are under treatment making the use of the oxygen therapy a less effective treatment to the patients with COPD.

Oxygen as a therapeutic agent for COPD was introduced in early 1922. Patients with severe pulmonary diseases were subjected to the therapy in a search for a better way to enable patients with this disease quit smoking (Tobias, 1997). The most straightforward cause of the disease is entirely cigarette smoking, and this has made it even worse to patients who continually smoke also though under therapy. Patients under home oxygen therapy have been reported to many situations encountering severe burns due to smoking and too far more cases of death due to the same cause of tobacco while under the therapy.

The article on home oxygen therapy and cigarette smoking aligns a clear definition of the effects of the dangerous practice giving evident effects of burns that patients eventually encounter. Patients with COPD that have been subjects of injuries due to smoking have been identified to be of the age of sixty and above and most of the home oxygen therapy and have been long term smokers. This article gives evidence that directs its attention towards the materials used in building the cannula tubing for these patients and provides a directive use of less combustive materials, and efficient oxygen delivery systems may reduce the incidences of burns.

A similar article that focuses on the cause of COPD highlights that this severe disease is detectable at older ages and patients are diagnosed with these conditions at a late time in life. The article shows that the COPD is increasingly detectable in patients who are older and it's less manageable at this age (Pauwels, 2001). Additionally, patients with the condition who are mostly smokers do have severe cases, and the effects of the disease are exaggerated to them. The increase in the age of these patients adds to the chances of increased effects of the disease. The article concludes that it's of great importance that greater care on these aging patients is observed and that there is close and controlled delivery of oxygen.

The home oxygen therapy on current smokers' article is of greater importance in being able to understand the effects of COPD and the causes of burns to patients under home oxygen therapy. The article focus to the facts that oxygen is a more significant cause of death in most of the patients under home oxygen therapy and this happens to the patients a that do not disclose to their clinicians the fact that they have never quit smoked (Ward, 2001). This has countered believe that oxygen is not a cause of such accidents to patients. However, most of the cases reported have found that the oxygen machines were in good condition even at the time of the incidence and that patients were smoking. This has revealed that oxygen may cause such cases since it accelerates combustion contrary to earlier believe of the causes of such cases.

The article further explains that patients should be adequately screened to ascertain whether it would be advisable to issue active smokers with home oxygen therapy. Despite the continued study of the cases and the increased observation of the patients, it has proved even more difficult issue to administer the treatment to the needy patients. Additionally, more facts are supporting the use of therapy oxygen to patients at home and the fact that most patients do not smoke. However, most clinicians prescribe the use of oxygen to these patients even though they are prone to the effects of accidents.

Conclusion

Compared to the other articles the facts within this article prove to be of more importance since it highlights the consequences of the cases and the fact that the patients require much supervision and screening before being subjected to the treatment. However, the other articles only focus on the different causes of COPD and do not show proof of the effects of oxygen therapy to patients. To conclude, it's important to appreciate that the form of oxygen therapies that are available to patients entirely depend on the current situation of their condition. Home oxygen therapy is viewed as a tertiary form of treatment to patients who have been diagnosed with COPD, the early detection and prevention of the disease call for the use of cigarette play a more significant role in ensuring that the primary aspect of preventing the disease is achieved (Melnyk, 2015).

References

Schols, A., Mostert, R., Cobben, N., Sorters, P., & Wouters, E. (1991). Transcutaneous oxygen saturation and carbon dioxide tension during meals in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Chest, 100(5), 1287-1292.

Tobias, J., & Garrett, J. (1997). Therapeutic Options For Severe, Refractory Status asthmaticus: Inhalational anesthetic agents, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and helium/oxygen ventilation. Pediatric Anesthesia, 7(1), 47-57.

Pauwels, R. A., Buist, A. S., Calverley, P. M., Jenkins, C. R., & Hurd, S. S. (2001). Global strategy for the diagnosis, management, and prevention of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: NHLBI/WHO Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) Workshop summary. American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine, 163(5), 1256-1276.

Ward, K. D., & Klesges, R. C. (2001). A meta-analysis of the effects of cigarette smoking on bone mineral density. Calcified tissue international, 68(5), 259-270.

Melnyk, C. W., Schuster, C., Leyser, O., & Meyerowitz, E. M. (2015). A developmental framework for graft formation and vascular reconnection in Arabidopsis thaliana. Current Biology, 25(10), 1306-1318.