We currently have a live production environment which we use daily. We also have a test / development platform on a different server.

Currently we work on the production server and at the same time make changes such as adding fields, and changing layouts of things on the development server. If after a few days we decide to implement the changes made on the development server the only methods I know of are the following (each with their own problems):

1. Copy the entire folder - This makes us lose any data added by the users for the past few days
2. Manually make the changes - This just creates double the work and adds the posibility of something going wrong during the changes.

Is there any way to copy ONLY the structural changes from the development platform onto our production server without losing data entered by users during the time it took to make the changes?

I know it is possible for additional modules by "installing" them but I do not know how to accomplish this for simple things like changing the name of a fiel in the accounts module.

I am not skilled in database management much either aside from very basic stuff. Any insight and help would be greatly appreciated