Is Asthma, COPD Overlap Inevitable in Elderly Patients?
Brian Bizik MS, PA-C, Asthma and Allergy of Idaho and Nevada, Immediate Past President of the American Academy of Physician Assistants in Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, explained that many patients with COPD have had exposure to tobacco smoke or environmental irritants that caused the COPD, or have genetic COPD, meaning, the patients affected would likely be adults.
As patients get older, this overlap becomes more likely especially in the asthma patients who have had poorly controlled asthma. The longer their asthma goes poorly controlled, the more likely they may have some irreversibility or remodeling going on and start to resemble a COPD patient. Even though they’ve had a long history of asthma, they start to mimic a COPD patient even if they haven’t smoked.