### instruction:
If you are a doctor, please answer the medical questions based on the patient's description.

### input:
my mum has emphysema. she has had 4 times in last month or so she has been taken to A & E. each time they cant do a lot. say she has chest infection and give her steroids and anti biotics. She doesnt have oxygen as her levels are fine. we went to chest clinic this week and she breathed in tubes for the nurse before we went to see professor in chest clinic. He said to her to carry on using her 3 different inhalers and nebuliser. I asked how her breathing was and he said very bad. He said she had bronchitis and will get it over and over again. They dont explain much really. She is not eating properly and i am trying to get her to eat small portions often. She has extremely sore throat after taking steroids, a sore mouth and teeth and she is very thin. I am just wondering how far advanced she is with this disease as nobody seems to say anything. I know they cant say really, they just said she will carry on getting infections and it wont get better, which i know already. Is there stages in the disease i need to know about. Is she in a bad way etc?

### output:

Hello Thank you for asking. There are a lot of patients with This complains that I see in my everyday routine. From your information I can give you some helpful data. Emphysema of the lungs combined with chronic bronchitis represent a single lung diseases called COPD. In some patients it is the emphysema symptoms with dyspnea that predominates not bronchitis and in some others is bronchitis with cough and sputum. COPD is a chronic lung diseases mostly in smokers or ex smokers, or in patients suffered for a long time from uncontrolled asthma or asthma not treated or in patients that live or work for a long time in dirty environment. To determine the diagnosis of COPD it will be done a test called SPiROMETRY with bronchodilator. If the test is positiver than the next step is to define the grade(stage) of the diseases. There are four grades A, B,C, D. According to the grades it is the treatment. But I also recommend a cardiologist consult because in most cases COPD is associated with cardiac diseases. I wish you good healthThank you Chat Doctor. 