Stage 4 means your emphysema is advanced and that your breathing is very severely affected. At this stage, smoking or other pollutants have destroyed many of the 300 million tiny air sacs, or alveoli, that help bring oxygen into your body and get rid of carbon dioxide.
A person who receives a diagnosis of stage 4 emphysema can live for a decade or more following the diagnosis. The outlook is typically better for those who quit smoking and manage their symptoms well with medication.
The extent of a person's lung damage can determine how severe their symptoms are. In certain cases, people with severe emphysema may lose up to 9 years of their life expectancy. Treatment cannot reverse the damage to the lungs, but it can help provide relief and comfort.
End-stage, or stage IV, COPD is the final stage of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Most people reach it after years of living with the disease and the lung damage it causes. As a result, your quality of life is low. You'll have frequent exacerbations, or flares – one of which could be fatal.
Because most patients aren't diagnosed until stage 2 or 3, the prognosis for emphysema is often poor, and the average life expectancy is about five years.
Approximately 80 percent of the patients with mild emphysema lived more than four years after the diagnosis. 60 to 70 percent of patients with moderate emphysema were alive after four years. 50 percent of patients with severe emphysema were alive after four years.
When to use oxygen for emphysema. A doctor may recommend that a person begin using oxygen therapy when their blood oxygen saturation falls below 88% or their blood oxygen level falls below 55 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) at rest.
It takes several years to progress to the final stages of COPD or emphysema, but lifestyle factors play a role. Quitting smoking can significantly improve the outlook. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute , COPD can progress quickly in people with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency who also smoke.
"It's not a death sentence by any means. Many people will live into their 70s, 80s, or 90s with COPD.” But that's more likely, he says, if your case is mild and you don't have other health problems like heart disease or diabetes.
Stage 4 is also called very severe emphysema. It can be particularly hard if you're 65 and older because breathing problems are more likely to interfere with basic daily tasks like dressing, cooking, or climbing stairs, and cause symptoms that send you to the hospital.
As a person approaches the end of life, they may experience the following: Shortness of breath while resting. Trouble with activities of daily living: walking, cooking, dressing, or doing other daily activities. Chronic respiratory failure.
Try not to let your breathing problems keep you from getting regular exercise, which can significantly increase your lung capacity. Protect yourself from cold air. Cold air can cause spasms of the bronchial passages, making it even more difficult to breathe.
Both breathing exercises and regular cardiovascular exercise like walking are critical to curbing symptoms and slowing the course of emphysema. One of the best ways to get started is to join a pulmonary rehabilitation program, which can help you create an exercise regimen tailored to your COPD, says Dr. Nolledo.
Emphysema continues to progress even after people stop smoking. However, quitting smoking helps reduce symptoms and improve quality of life and life expectancy.
After this paradoxical shift, treating a chronic emphysema patient with oxygen increased the blood oxygen levels too rapidly. This may result in knocking out his hypoxic drive, causing further depression of the respiratory drive.
Stage 3 COPD life expectancy is 5.8 years.
Signs and Symptoms of Advanced Emphysema
Over time, the trapped air can cause lungs to get very large and lead to shortness of breath. You may have trouble breathing when you are walking even short distances or during daily activities like showering, climbing stairs or carrying groceries.
Studies suggest that those with stage one or two (mild and moderate) COPD who smoke lose a few years of life expectancy at the age of 65. For those with stages three or four (severe and very severe) COPD, they lose from six to nine years of life expectancy due to smoking.
People with mild emphysema who quit smoking have a normal life expectancy. Those who adopt good health habits can enjoy a fairly normal lifestyle for a long time. Even people whose emphysema is severe have a good chance of surviving for five years or more.
There is no cure, but there are effective methods of treatment, which can slow the progression of the disease and allow for a normal life. In short, the diagnosis of emphysema is not a death sentence. Rather, it is a medical condition that should prompt you to take an active role in the management of your disease.
Stage III: Severe
Typically, you will also experience new signs of COPD progression, including getting colds more often, feeling tightness in your chest, swelling in your ankles and feet, having trouble catching your breath, and breathing issues when you exert yourself.
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.
Emphysema gets worse over time. You cannot undo the damage to your lungs. Over time, you may find that: You get short of breath even when you do things like get dressed or fix a meal.