Question

Mr Nel is a chronic cigarette smoker for the last 20 years. He smokes between 30-40 cigarettes every day. He is overweight and has a sedentary lifestyle working for a computer company. At home he is always tired and not in the mood to exercise. Sometimes he has difficulty to breathe.

Predict the effect of mr Nel’s lifestyle on his spirogram, therefore his lung volumes and write a CONCLUSION. Refer to his tidal volume, inspiratory reserve volume, forced expiratory volume in 1 second and his total lung capacity.

Answer 1

As mentioned, he has been smoking 2 packs of cigarette for last two decades, which can cause significant damage to his lungs as well as other organs like heart, kidneys and liver. Severe smoking make a person sluggish that further cause other issue like sedentary life style and heavy weight etc.

Of course he wont be having a normal spirogram that would be drawn on the basis of overall lung performance like total lung capacity, tidal volume, reserve volume and also expiratory volume (forced). In general a healthy individual would have approximately 6 L total lung capacity wherein tidal volume lie between 3L and 2.5 L, so tidal volume be less than 500 ml as he is smoker and a normal adult have around 500 ml tidal volume during breathing. Inspiratory reserve volume or capacity for a healthy nonsmoker adult man is ~3.1 L and but less than 2 L for a chronic heavy smoker like Neil. Vital capacity would be less than 4.8 L and expiratory volume (through force) would be less than 1.2 L whereas in case of smokers where the develop COPD and they can breathe out faster than the healthy individual and through 4 L air in a second. Similarly, if they have other lung condition like emphysema then he may develop inflation of lungs and his residual lung capacity would be increases (1.2 L for healthy person). Conclusively, he would be having compromised or weaker lungs and also obstruction in lung tissue due to smoking and ultimately poor pulmonary function.