Diagnosis and Treatment COPD

What is your primary diagnosis for this patient at this time (Support the decision for your diagnosis with pertinent positives and negatives from the case)?

The primary diagnosis for the presenting client is moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (ICD-10-J44.9). A COPD diagnosis is given if the FEV1/FVC predicted is less than 0.7 percent (Haynes, 2018). The client reports an FEV1/FVC of 0.52, which is indicative of diagnostic airflow obstruction. The FEV1/FVC ratio of <0.7 percent and the respiratory symptoms reported in the subjective interview including dyspnea, shortness of breath, wheezing, and excess mucus or phlegm production (all classical symptoms of COPD) point to COPD. Further, the predicted value of FEV1 is less than the normal 80%, pointing to potential airflow obstruction (Haynes, 2018). The chest x-ray shows the lungs to be of normal size and not hyper-inflated as is characteristic of COPD (Hurst, 2018). However, hyper-inflated lungs are indicative of advanced COPD and are more likely to occur in severe cases.