My father in law was just diagnosed with COPD. I would like to find out as much as possible about this condition/disease. Is this just fancy name for emphysema? Does this condition always get worse with time?

He smoked for 40 years, but quit 10 years ago. He gets winded just walking to the mailbox. He is fairly active for a 70 year old. This has us all concerned as to what expect. We want to give him the best possible medical care and therapy.

Does anyone have any more to fill me in on that I can't find on the American Lung Association site (lungusa.com)? Like personal experiences? Medications?

Thanks for your help in this matter.

How is this: Search Results: Merck Manual Professional (http://www.merck.com/mmpe/search.html?qt=copd&qp=%2Bsite%3Awww.merck.com+%2Burl%3A%2Fmmpe+-url%3Aprint%2F+-url%3Aindex%2F+-url%3Aresources%2Fpronunciations+-url%3Amultimedia%2F+-url%3A%2Fmmpe%2Fau+-url%3A%2Fmmpe%2Fag+-url%3Alexicomp%2F&charset=utf8&la=en&start=0)

I don't know if this is useful too. Medical Acoustics Introduces the Lung Flute® - Medical Acoustics (http://www.medicalacoustics.com/Home/LungFlute)

You may also want to look at this: Table of Contents, THE MERCK MANUAL OF HEALTH & AGING (http://www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual_ha/contents.html)

I believe COPD will likely get worse. The term COPD means Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Chronic - most of the time; Obstuctive - airway colapses; pulmonary - lung

The cause may be emphasema and that's not the only cause.