الفهرس 
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)Only 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Currently, chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is defined by the Global Initiative for chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD, 2014) as a preventable and treatable disease with some extra pulmonary effects and co-morbidities that may contribute to the severity in individual patients.
It is a disease state characterized by chronic airflow limitation that is not fully reversible. The airflow limitation is usually progressive and associated with an abnormal inflammatory response of the lung to noxious gases including cigarette smoke, biomass fuels and occupational agents.
COPD is a major health problem affecting subjects over 40 years of age, the World Health Organization has published that COPD was the fourth leading cause of death in 2002. Total deaths from COPD are projected to increase by more than 30% in the next years unless urgent action is taken to reduce the underlying risk factors, especially tobacco use.
Over the past decade, interest in QoL has increased and that is mainly because patients are more concerned about their symptoms and their physical function, cognitive performance, psychosocial condition, emotional status and adaptation to disease, rather than objective measures such as expiratory airflow.
COPD causes severe deterioration of QoL, physical activity and functional status in elderly populations and that the degree of this impairment mainly depends on the severity of chronic airway obstruction, other studies showed that there is a significant relationship between age and the QoL of COPD patients.
Elderly patients affected with COPD-related respiratory failure are frequently impaired in their social life, psychic functions and activities of daily living.
So this study was conducted to assess the quality of life among elderly with COPD.
The study sample comprised ninety participants aged sixty years and above. The studied sample was divided into three groups:
group A:
Thirty elderly male patients above sixty years old, diagnosed to have COPD. They were recruited from the inpatient wards and outpatient clinics of Ain Shams university hospital.
group B:
Thirty elderly female patients above sixty years old, diagnosed to have COPD. They were recruited from the inpatient wards and outpatient clinics of Ain Shams university hospital.
group C: (control group)
Thirty healthy elderly participants (both males and females), age matched with no apparent evidence of COPD after full medical history and clinical examination. They were recruited from the community.
All participants included in the study were subjected to full history taking, clinical examination, pulmonary function test, short form 36 questionnaire, SGRQ, assessment of function using ADL & IADL scales.
The current study showed that control group had higher mean age than other two groups.
In this study smoking, occupational exposure and environmental hazards were important factors which share in being risk factors and increase the severity of COPD.
Current study showed higher frequency of COPD symptoms and signs, higher percentage of exacerbations and hospitalization, and lower mean FEV1 in male and female groups than control group.
The current study showed increase frequency of COPD complications (cor pulmonal and respiratory failure) among male patients more than other two groups.
The above results were affecting male and female patients in this study as regards low scores in SF36 questionnaire and high scores in SGRQ, they were more dependent in ADL & IADL scales with decrease in physical activities, that all these results lead to decrease in quality of life among elderly with COPD (male and female groups).