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Essay on pediatric asthma management
Essay on pediatric asthma management
Asthma relationship with air pollution
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Asthma is a serious ongoing disease that affects the airways of both adults and children.5 It is a type of inflammatory disease in your lungs with multiple triggers which may include the flu, indoor allergies, pets, dust mites, exercise, and tobacco smoke. Asthma has been recognized since ancient Egyptian times. Researchers found prescriptions written in hieroglyphics. Aretaus of Cappadonia an ancient Greek master clinician wrote the initial clinical description of asthma. Aaezein is the Greek word from which the current medical term Asthma come. The original Greek term mean ' sharp breath'. There are many people who have this chronic disease. Approximately 7.1 million children are diagnosed, and 18.9 million adults; 8.2 percent of the population of the United States. A diagnosis is the first step in coming terms with effective asthma treatments. One way to test for asthma is a physical exam, which is where health professionals ask questions about signs and symptoms, and other possible health issues. Lung function tests can determine the amount of air that moves in and out as you breathe. (Mayo Clinic) Spirometry is another process that estimates the narrowing of bronchial tubes by checking how much air an individual can exhale after a deep breath and how fast the patient breathes out. Peak flow meters are a common test procedure for asthma.1 The peak flow meter is a device that measures how hard you breathe out or exhale. Lower readings on the meter shows a diminished lung capacity resulting in less effective breathing. It is generally a strong signal that an individual's asthma may be getting worse.2 These measurements are taken again after the use of bronchodilators such as Albuterol to open your airways. If the inhaler impr... ... middle of paper ... ... allergies that trigger asthma attacks. Health care professionals should be alerted to changes in a patients physical health. Any new condition can have an effect on asthma treatment. A plan in place today may be obsolete should health conditions change. Works Cited "Symptoms of Asthma: Shortness of Breath, Chest Tightness, and More." WebMD. WebMD, . Web. 22 Apr. 2013. 2"Asthma Causes and Triggers: Allergies, Foods, Heartburn, Exercise, and More." WebMD. WebMD, Web. 22 Apr. 2013. 3Staff, Mayo Clinic. "Definition." Mayo Clinic. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 26 May 2012. Web. 22 Apr. 2013. 4"Asthma Medications: Inhalers, Nebulizers, Bronchodilators, and More." WebMD. WebMD, . Web. 22 Apr. 2013. 5Staff, Mayo Clinic. "Definition." Mayo Clinic. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 26 May 2012. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.
First of all, people may feel anxious when they suddenly have an asthma attack. It is a quite frightening experience because people with asthma have very sensitive airways. If something irritates the airways of a person with asthma, the airways become red and swollen, and this may be even more difficult for air to pass through the airways into the alveoli and out again . People became breathless and breathed more frequently that make them feel more anxious.
I will see him again in a few weeks, at which point we will perform lung function tests to get an objective measure of his asthma control.
First, a problem with your lungs or airways may disturb the patient’s breathing system. Sudden breathlessness could be an asthma attack. This shows that your airways have narrowed and you will produce more phlegm (sticky mucus), which will cause you to cough and wheeze. You will feel breathless because it will be hard to move air in and out of your airways. Patients are recommended to use a spacer device with your asthma inhaler. This will bring more medicine to your lungs, helping to relieve your breathlessness. (NHS, 2013)
Asthma is a condition of the bronchial tubes characterized by episodes of constriction and increased mucous production. A person with asthma has bronchial tubes that are super sensitive to various stimuli, or triggers, that can produce asthma symptom.In other words, asthmatics have special sensitivity that causes their lung tissue to react far more than is should to various stimulating factors or triggers. For this reason, people with asthma are said to have "twitchy airways."Some symptoms that people with asthma commonly experience are chest tightenings, difficulty inhaling and exhaling, wheezing, production of large amounts of mucous in their windpipes and coughing.Coughing can be frequent or intermittent, and can be loose-reflecting extra mucous secretion in the airways or dry and deep-reflecting tight bronchospasms. Not all these symptoms occur in every case of asthma.Sometimes people may have coughing without and symptoms for months or even years before it's realized that they are asthmatic. Interestingly enough, asthma symptoms are most severe at night, while we're lying down our airways narrow as a result of gravity changes. Also our lungs do not clear secretions as well at night, which leads to mucous retention, and that can increase the obstruction to air flow.
Asthma is chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways characterized by recurring episodes of wheeling and breathlessness. It often exists with allergies and can be worsened through exposure to allergens. In fact, asthma is complicated syndromes that have neither single definition nor complete explanation to the point. In light of its treatment, it is worthwhile to notice that asthma cannot be cured, instead can be only managed by avoiding exposure to allergens and/or by using medications regularly.
Asthma is a heterogeneous chronic disease sited on chromosome 5 (5q31). [1, 2] There are about 100 genes linked to asthma. These genes handle the immune system and inflammation [3]. One gene known as DENND1B, causes an increased amount of the molecule cytokine to be released. [4] Cytokine is the motive for the symptoms of asthma to arise. Asthma is affected by several genetic and environmental factors that can cause life-threatening complications to occur for the people who have this disease.
If the spirometer includes an indicator to show your best effort, your health care provider or respiratory therapist will help you set a goal. Keep a log of your progress as told by your health care provider.
You should be working with your doctor to treat other conditions that can interfere and worsen your asthma and help manage. Always avoid things that will make your asthma worse (asthma triggers). However, one trigger you should not avoid is physical activity. Physical activity is very important in a healthy lifestyle. Work with your doctor to create an asthma action plan. An asthma action plan helps guide you to take your medicines properly and on time, avoid asthma triggers (except physical activity), track your level of asthma control, respond to symptoms, and seek emergency care when needed.
Unfortunately, the most common symptoms of wheezing are cold and cough which is associated with a mild viral infection. Cold and flu affect our respiratory system and thus cause wheezing. Other symptoms of wheezing include tightness of the chest, bluish tinge around the mouth, fever, loss of voice, stuffy nose, coughing and shortness of breath. Contracting a viral infection during a change of season is very common but any recurring viral infection that causes breathing difficulties should be reported to a medical practitioner at the
Asthma is best described by its technical name: Reversible Obstructive Airway Disease (ROAD). In other words, asthma is a condition in which the airways of the lungs become either narrowed or blocked. The results are usually temporary but they cause shortness of breath, breathing trouble, wheezing, coughing, and tightness in the chest. To know what it really feels like to have asthma, I would like everyone to pick up the straw that’s on their desk and put it in their mouth as if they were using it to drink something. Then, pinch your nose. Try breathing for twenty seconds. A real attack can last up to more than 10 minutes and you are only doing it for 20 seconds. If we had more time, I would have the class go to a stairwell and have you run up and down and see what it is like to have asthma while doing other activities.
Management of asthma will be custom tailored to each patient. Treatment may include reliever medication, controller medication, and avoidance measures (2011, p. 4). Avoidance measures include patients avoiding certain allergens that causes
From 2001 to 2010, asthma prevalence rose from 7.3% to 8.4%, reveling just a little over a 1% percent growth in nine years (Trends in Asthma Prevalence, Health Care Use, and Mortality in the United States, 2001-2010, 2012). This does not appear as an enormous increase until we look at that 1%, as the millions of people affected yearly. In 2009, there was a reported growth of 4.7 million new asthma diagnoses. In 2010 reports showed that there was 10.5 million physician office visits and 1.8 million emergency department visits, responsible for 439,000 hospitalizations and 3,630 deaths (Evidence Summary: Control Asthma,
There are many symptoms that indicate the presence of asthma in your body. The symptoms include: coughing at night and during exercise with phlegm, difficulty breathing, breathing through mouth, shortness of breath, fast breathing, and recurrent respiratory infections. Other common symptoms are chest tightening, wheezing sound coming from chest, anxiety, quick heart rate, sore throat, and early awakenings. If a person notices any of these signs that occur frequently, they must speak to a doctor and determine whether or not that person has
Asthma is a disease that currently has no cure and can only be controlled and managed through different treatment methods. If asthma is treated well it can prevent the flare up of symptoms such as coughing, diminish the dependence on quick relief medication, and help to minimize asthma attacks. One of the key factors to successful treatment of asthma is the creation of an asthma action plan with the help of a doctor that outlines medications and other tasks to help control the patient’s asthma ("How Is Asthma Treated and Controlled?"). The amount of treatment changes based on the severity of the asthma when it is first diagnosed and may be the dosage may be increased or decreased depending on how under control the patient’s asthma is. One of the main ways that asthma can be controlled is by becoming aware of the things that trigger attacks. For instance staying away from allergens such as pollen, animal fur, and air pollution can help minimize and manage the symptoms associated with asthma. Also if it is not possible to avoid the allergens that cause a patient’s asthma to flare up, they may need to see an allergist. These health professionals can help diagnosis what may need to be done in other forms of treatment such as allergy shots that can help decrease the severity of the asthma ("How Is Asthma Treated and Controlled?").
There are 2 types of breathing, costal and diaphragmatic breathing (Berman, 2015). Costal refers to the intercostal and accessory muscles while diaphragmatic refers to breathing using your diaphragm (Berman, 2015).It is important to understand the two different types of breathing because it is vital in the assessment of the patient. For example, if a patient is suing their accessory muscles to aid in breathing then we can safely assume that they are having breathing problems and use a focused assessment of their respiration. Assessing respiration is fairly straightforward. The patient’s respiration rate can be affected by anxiety so a useful to avoid this is to check pulse first and after you have finished that, while still holding their pulse point, check their respiration rate. Inconspicuous assessment avoids the patient changing their breathing because they know they are being assessed which patients can sometimes do subconsciously. Through textbooks and practical classes I have learned what to be aware of while assessing a patient’s respiratory rate. For example; their normal breathing pattern, if and how their health problems are affecting their breathing, any medications that could affect their respiratory rate and also the rate, depth, rhythm and quality of their breathing (Berman, 2015). The only problem I found while assessing respiration rate was I thought it seemed a bit invasive looking at the