COPD symptoms: what are they and how are they related?

Patients with chronic illnesses often have poor mental health. Anxiety or depression are two of the clinical entities most found in patients with COPD. Find out about their effects here.

Written and verified by the psychologist Gorka Jiménez Pajares.

Last update: 09 May, 2024

The body and the mind are twinned. As a result, the individual’s health and well-being converge as well as any illness or feelings of discomfort. Therefore, when they suffer from a chronic disease, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the psychological sphere plays a key role.

Although this is a controversial issue, anxiety symptoms, as well as signs of depression, have the potential to influence COPD. Furthermore, they seem to affect the quality of life perceived by sufferers. In fact, these clinical disorders have the potential to poison a patient’s functional performance.

The difficulties of suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

COPD is a pathology that chronically affects the lungs. Anxiety and depression are the conditions that most frequently occur alongside this illness (co-morbidity) (Kunik et al., 2005).

As lung disease progresses, it becomes more severe. Indeed, sufferers experience great difficulties in their daily activities. These are known as functional tasks.

Sufferers of COPD tend to exhibit a deficit in physical performance compared with other patients (Anegan et al., 2012, Troosters et al., 2010). For example, they walk slower, because their breathing capacity limits them.

The link between anxiety and COPD

According to research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, led by Dr. Monira I. Aldahi, the majority of patients with lung disease also exhibit clinically significant anxiety symptoms. Moreover, the impact of anxiety in this disease results in less physical exercise.

As you’ll see later, this can be an element that feeds back into depressive symptoms. In fact, one of the conclusions of the above study was that increased anxiety and depression, in combination with poor physical condition, act synergistically. This produces low functional performance in sufferers of COPD.

Furthermore, anxiety has the potential to induce certain symptoms that aggravate COPD. For example, hyperpnea. This symptom causes the patient to experience an air deficit. In turn, it decreases their ability to perform physically. Consequently, they don’t perform physical exercise and their quality of life decreases.

The link between depression and COPD

Depression also has the potential to exacerbate the severity of lung disease symptoms. At the same time, as a result of the deficit in physical exercise, there are reductions in activity levels. It causes sufferers to be more isolated from their significant others. This is also linked to depression (Bourbeau et al., 2009).

However, researchers don’t yet know the causes behind the change in the mental health of these patients. That said, a study published in BMJ Journals suggests that the deterioration in the quality of life, as well as social isolation and decreased economic income, are influential factors in the appearance of anxiety and depression in the context of COPD (van Manen et al., 2002).

It’s of paramount importance to identify the elements that intensify the symptoms of lung disease. Moreover, it’s imperative that investigations continue into how depressive symptoms, as well as anxiety, affect the condition.

The objective is clear. It consists of creating specific interventions that, on the one hand, prevent the onset of symptoms and, on the other, effectively intervene in them once they’ve occurred. As a result, sufferers would experience an improvement in their functional performance.