Doctors consider stage 2 COPD to be moderate. When a person has stage 2 COPD, their symptoms can include shortness of breath, chronic cough, and frequent respiratory infections. COPD will generally become more severe as the disease progresses.
Stage 2 COPD life expectancy is 2.2 years.
Stage 2 (moderate) COPD: You may experience persistent coughing and phlegm (often worse in the morning), increased shortness of breath, tiredness, sleep problems, or wheezing. About one in five people have exacerbations that worsen their symptoms and cause the color of their phlegm to change.
There is no cure for COPD, but you can manage the symptoms. This can be complex, so you'll need to work closely with your doctor. The goal is to relieve your symptoms, keep your lungs working as well as possible, and prevent flare-ups.
Can you live 10 or 20 years with COPD? The exact length of time you can live with COPD depends on your age, health, and symptoms. Especially if your COPD is diagnosed early, if you have mild stage COPD, and your disease is well managed and controlled, you may be able to live for 10 or even 20 years after diagnosis.
Stage 1: 0.3 years. Stage 2: 2.2 years. Stage 3: 5.8 years. Stage 4: 5.8 years.
Method: Qualitative analysis using the framework approach of in-depth interviews with 25 carers of COPD patients who had died in the preceding 3–10 months. Results: The average age of death was 77.4 years.
Some people can live with mild or moderate COPD for decades. Other people may be diagnosed with more advanced COPD and progress to very severe disease much faster. Some of this boils down to genetics. But some of it is due to how much you smoke or smoked and the level of lung irritants you are exposed to.
There is no cure for COPD, and the damaged airways don't regenerate. However, there are things you can do to slow progress of the disease, improve your symptoms, stay out of hospital and live longer.
In general, COPD progresses gradually — symptoms first present as mild to moderate and slowly worsen over time. Often, patients live with mild COPD for several decades before the disease progresses to moderate or severe. However, each patient is unique.
Which has worse symptoms? Because emphysema is a late stage of COPD, the signs and symptoms are similar. If you have emphysema, you are already experiencing COPD symptoms, though earlier stages of COPD will not have as dramatic an impact as the degree of tissue degeneration is minimal.
How Serious Is Your Emphysema? Stage 2 is also called moderate emphysema. But that doesn't always mean that your disease is moderate. If you're young and otherwise healthy, you could have severe lung damage and still be at stage 2.
COPD is terminal. People with COPD who do not die from another condition will usually die from COPD. Until 2011, the Global Initiative for Obstructive Lung Disease assessed the severity and stage of COPD using only forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1).
The 5-year life expectancy for people with COPD ranges from 40% to 70%, depending on disease severity. This means that 5 years after diagnosis 40 to 70 out of 100 people will be alive.
By improving your lifestyle, you can live a long and full life with COPD. A common misinterpretation is that 'Chronic' means really bad or extreme rather than long term. Individuals who exercise more and maintain a healthy weight can experience less severe symptoms and enjoy a better quality of life.
Respiratory failure is considered the major cause of death in advanced COPD.
Your physician will determine your stage based on results from a breathing test called a spirometry, which assesses lung function by measuring how much air you can breathe in and out and how quickly and easily you can exhale. They will also consider the severity of your symptoms and the frequency of flare-ups.
Key facts. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the third leading cause of death worldwide, causing 3.23 million deaths in 2019. Nearly 90% of COPD deaths in those under 70 years of age occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).
Genetics. You're more likely to develop COPD if you smoke and have a close relative with the condition, which suggests some people's genes might make them more vulnerable to the condition. People with alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency can go on to develop COPD. Alpha-1-antitrypsin is a substance that protects your lungs.
What is emphysema? Emphysema is a type of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). COPD is a group of lung diseases that make it hard to breathe and get worse over time. The other main type of COPD is chronic bronchitis.