Asthma Essay

767 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Reflection on asthma

Anna Kate Westmoreland
Dr. Cleveland
A&P II Lab
May 7, 2014
Asthma
Asthma is a chronic, long-term respiratory disease that inflames and narrows air passages. Asthma is a common disease with definite symptoms, a routine diagnosis, a variety of treatments, and many risk factors. This disease affects many different people every single day.
Approximately twenty-five million people in the United States are known to have Asthma (“What is Asthma?”). Asthma’s most common symptom is wheezing, or a scratchy, whistling sound that occurs when you breathe. Other symptoms include tightness of the chest, shortness of breath, coughing, and trouble sleeping due to a chronic cough. Asthma flare-ups, also known as asthma attacks, occur due to exposure to different allergens. Asthma symptoms can be more severe during times of stress, illness, or exercise (“Asthma”, American Academy). An asthma attack can be extremely dangerous, and can last for a few minutes, hours, or days (“Asthma”, New York Times).
Asthma can be diagnosed by researching the patient’s medical history, and by performing breathing tests. One common breathing test is done using a spirometer, which measures the amount the patient can inhale, exhale, and how much the lungs can hold. Many people with asthma also have allergies, so doctors may perform allergy testing (“Asthma”, American Academy). A doctor may also diagnose a patient with asthma simply because the patient experienced a severe asthma attack. The doctor will ask how often the symptoms occur and what triggers the symptoms so that he or she can determine the severity of the patient’s asthma (“What is Asthma?”). Patterns in symptoms can also help doctors diagnose asthma, such as symptoms that tend to occur during the night, ...

... middle of paper ...

...diagnosed during childhood. About seven million of the known twenty-five million Americans who have asthma are children. Children who wheeze and commonly have respiratory infections are at the highest risk of developing asthma that will continue past age six. Other risk factors include eczema, allergies, and parents who have asthma. Adults who come in contact with chemicals and industrial dusts in the workplace are also at a high risk for developing occupational asthma (“What is Asthma?”).
Asthma is chronic, and sufferers must live with this disease everyday. It has many risk factors, a variety of treatments, a routine diagnosis, and many different symptoms. There is no cure, but over the years, doctors and researchers have come a long way in learning how to treat this disease. Asthma can now be successfully managed so that patients can live a normal, healthy life.

Show More
Related

  • Effects of asthma and mental health

    539 Words  | 2 Pages

    Secondly, severe asthma can be life-threatening. Suffering from asthma can be frightening to experience and people often feel scared and anxious. The fear and scare can also lead to breathlessness and so mak...

    Read More

  • Characteristics and Treatments for Asthma

    805 Words  | 2 Pages

    Allergies are the one of the main leading causes of asthma. About 90% of children under the age of ten that are infected with asthma have allergies. Around 70% of people under the age of thirty have asthma and 50% of those over thirty. Allergies is likely to be a helping factor to asthma if:

    Read More

  • Asthma And Its Effects On Childhood Development And The Diagnosis Of Asthma

    1252 Words  | 3 Pages

    Imagine a young child competing with his or her fellow classmates during recess and immediately losing the ability to breathe normally. He or she stops in the middle of the competition and falls to the ground while holding his or her chest trying to find air. When you are young, being able to keep up with your peers during recess and sporting events is very important, however, having asthma restricts this. Asthma has a significant impact on childhood development and the diagnosis of asthma for children 18 years and younger has dramatically increased over the years. Asthma is known as a “chronic inflammation of the small and large airways” with “evident bronchial hyper-responsiveness, airflow obstruction, and in some patients, sub-basement fibrosis and over-secretion of mucus” (Toole, 2013). The constant recreation of the lung walls can even occur in young children and “lead to permanent lung damages and reduced lung function” (Toole, 2013). While one of the factors is genetics, many of the following can be prevented or managed. Obesity, exposure to secondhand smoke, and hospitalization with pneumonia in the early years of life have all been suggested to increase children’s risk of developing asthma.

    Read More

  • Exercise Induced Asthma

    1859 Words  | 4 Pages

    "Asthma is a pulmonary disease with the following characteristics: 1) airway obstruction that is reversible in most patients either spontaneously or with treatment; 2) airway inflammation; and 3) increased airway responsiveness to a variety of stimuli" (Enright, 1996, p. 375). There presently exist many varieties of asthma that differ in the severity, means of induction, and methods of treatment. One type is exercise-induced asthma. "Exercise-induced asthma (EIA) is a temporary increase in airway resistance and acute narrowing of the airway that occurs after several minutes of strenuous exercise, usually after the exercise had ceased" (Spector, 1993, p. 571). Perfectly healthy individuals with no history of asthma or allergies can experience EIA. EIA can be found in 5.6%-25% of the general population and in 40%-90% of asthmatics (Randolph, 1997). EIA has been recognized for over 300 years, but only recently have it's pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment been studied in detail.

    Read More

  • Essay On Emphysema

    1699 Words  | 4 Pages

    Diagnosis include a pulmonary function test, a test which helps measure the lungs ability to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. This type of test is performed with a special machine called spirometry (Mayo Clinic, 2011). A spirometry determines how well the lungs intake, hold, and utilize the air and can even detect the severity of lung disease and determine whether the disease has decreased airflow or a disruption of airflow has occurred. Another device used is a peak flow monitor (PFM). A device that measures the speed at which an individual can blow air out of lungs (Mayo Clinic, 2011). A doctor can diagnose a patient with symptoms that correspond to emphysema, such as a cough that doesn’t go away, coughing up a large sum of mucus, shor...

    Read More

  • Childhood Asthma: Developing New Therapies

    4258 Words  | 9 Pages

    Pedersen, Soren, and Stanley J. Szefler, eds. Childhood Asthma. Vol. 209. New York: Taylor and Francis, 2006. Print.

    Read More

  • Asthma During Pregnancy:

    923 Words  | 2 Pages

    Asthma is a result of chronic inflammation of those airways and tubes that supply air to the lungs. It may be cause due to

    Read More

  • Overcoming Asthmatic Disparity

    1816 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Asthma

    1120 Words  | 3 Pages

    More than 17 million Americans suffer from asthma, with nearly 5 million cases occurring in children under age 18. In the United States, asthma causes nearly 5,500 deaths each year. Asthma occurs in males and females of all ages, ethnic groups, and socioeconomic levels. For reasons not completely understood, asthma is generally more common in poor urban neighborhoods, in cold climates, and in industrialized countries.

    Read More

  • How Does Asthma Affect The Body

    1676 Words  | 4 Pages

    An asthma attack has many effects on the body. Asthma affects the body by limiting the flow of air into the lungs. It causes airway inflammation, bronchial restriction and irregular airway obstruction. Airway inflammation is how the body reacts to something that is irritating the airways. When happening your lungs begin swelling, your breathing passageway becomes restricted and mucus is secreted. Bronchial restriction happens when the muscles in your airways tighten around the breathing tubes in your lungs. (Bronchial tubes). Mucus or fluid that is accumulated by the reaction can obstruct your airway and make it very difficult to breathe properly.

    Read More

  • Asthma Attacks

    853 Words  | 2 Pages

    When people hear the word asthma, the first thing that comes to mind is a nerd wheezing and taking an inhaler almost every five minutes, but that is not the case for everyone who is diagnosed with this disease. A person with asthma will often wheeze, become breathless, experience tightness in the chest, and cough at night or early in the morning. Asthma is a chronic respiratory condition and a disease marked by spasms in the bronchi of the lungs, caused by chronic inflammation within the breathing passages. This may...

    Read More

  • asthma

    925 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Chronic Bronchitis Essay

    783 Words  | 2 Pages

    Chronic bronchitis is a disorder that causes inflammation to the airway, mainly the bronchial tubules. It produces a chronic cough that lasts three consecutive months for more than two successive years (Vijayan,2013). Chronic Bronchitis is a member of the COPD family and is prominently seen in cigarette smokers. Other factors such as air pollutants, Asbestos, and working in coal mines contributes to inflammation. Once the irritant comes in contact with the mucosa of the bronchi it alters the composition causing hyperplasia of the glands and producing excessive sputum (Viayan,2013). Goblet cells also enlarge to contribute to the excessive secretion of sputum. This effects the cilia that carry out the mechanism of trapping foreign bodies to allow it to be expelled in the sputum, which are now damaged by the irritant making it impossible for the person to clear their airway. Since the mechanism of airway clearance is ineffective, the secretion builds up a thickened wall of the bronchioles causing constriction and increasing the work of breathing. The excessive build up of mucous could set up pneumonia. The alveoli are also damaged enabling the macrophages to eliminate bacteria putting the patient at risk for acquiring an infection.

    Read More

  • Secondhand Smoke

    329 Words  | 1 Pages

    Asthmatic children are especially at risk. Exposure to secondhand smoke increases the number of episodes and severity of symptoms in hundreds of thousands of asthmatic children. Between 200,000 and 1,000,000 asthmatic children have their condition worsened by secondhand smoke.

    Read More

  • Asthma Essay

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    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?").

    Read More

More about Asthma Essay

Open Document