Acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are common and
have serious implications. They greatly reduce patients’ quality of life and often result
in hospital admissions. Acute exacerbations of COPD are the largest single cause of
emergency respiratory admissions and each exacerbation results in an average hospital
stay of 10.3 days. In this article we review what causes exacerbations in patients with COPD and
how you can help to prevent and treat them effectively.
