Visualize a premature newborn, attached to machines pumping oxygen and medication, simply due to being diagnosed with a debilitating disease known as viral pneumonia. The baby now has to undergo several expensive treatments in order to survive. Many premature babies and their parents undergo these procedures on a day-to-day basis. Viral pneumonia is an inflammation of the lungs due to a harmful virus (Benson 74). There are many catastrophic causes and symptoms of viral pneumonia in premature babies, the disease can be cured with treatment and proper prevention.
Knowing the background information of viral pneumonia is vital in treating the disease in premature babies. Two scientists, Hippocrates and Maimonides, discovered pneumonia between 450 B.C. and 380 B.C as well as in the early nineteenth century. Hippocrates discovered pneumonia, but knew very little about it. On the other hand, Maimonides knew more about pneumonia and described it more thoroughly than Hippocrates. He described pneumonia as a disease causing acute fever, sticking pain in the side, short rapid breaths, and jagged pulse and cough (Meeks and Heit 492). “Viral pneumonia occurs more in young children than older adults because the bodies of young children have a harder time fighting off the virus and it is often caused by one of the several viruses: adenovirus, influenza, parainfluenza, and respiratory syncytial virus” (“Viral Pneumonia”). Viral pneumonia develops in children in about five to seven days, but bacterial pneumonia is more severe (McKenzie and et. al. 396). “Pneumonia affects approximately four million individuals each year. It is the most common cause of infectious death in the United States” (Neighbors and Jones 162). Viral pneumonia occ...
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In this day and age, the general population assumes that when someone is hospitalized the risk for getting a new infection while in the hospital is minimal. However, in the United States the risk for gaining a hospital-associated infection has become a serious concern and a costly one at that. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that hospital-associated infections have cost an estimate of 35.7 to 45 billion dollars to United States hospital when 20% of these infections could have been preventable with the correct interventions. One of the most common hospital-associated infections has become hospital-acquired pneumonia. (Scott II, 2009) This type of pneumonia is easily preventable if healthcare workers would comply with a few simple interventions that should already be in place in their facility. While these interventions have been proven effective, full compliance is still lacking and in the end it is being left to up the health care staff to become aware of the results.
Poll, T., Opal, M.S. Pathogenesis, treatment, and prevention of pneumococcal pneumonia. 2009. Lancet 374: p. 1543–56. Retrieved from http://www.umcutrecht.nl/NR/rdonlyres/A34BBBAE-1C56-42C1-B308-070A781CE82C/20643/2Review_pneumocpneumonia_poll_opal_lancet.pdf
Rhinovirus - The Common Cold Introduction: Rhinovirus, pictured above, is best known as the common cold. It is a member of the picornaviridae family along with more virulent viruses such as polio and hepatitis A. The viruses of this family are characterized as small (20-30nm genome) positive polarity RNA viruses consisting of one genome segment and a nonenveloped capsid. Unlike the more lethal relatives, Rhinovirus is designed to attack a host numerous times during their lifetime. It is the perfect pathogen.
C. pneumoniae was first discovered in the 1960's studies for trying to prevent a bacterial eye infection. By the early 1980's it was isolated from a respiratory culture. When first isolated it was thought to be a virus. Eventually scientists found out that it is atypical due to how different it is from other types of pneumonia. Due to the fact that it is atypical the most common types of antibiotics used to treat pneumonia don’t work on c. pneumoniae.
...for pneumonia, 6 million cases of otitis media, and 60,000 cases of invasive disease, which included 3300 cases of meningitis. Incidence in the U.S. showed geographic variation from 21 to 33 cases per 100,000 people. Interestingly enough, Alaska native adults have an 8 times higher disease rate and Alaskan infants a 4 times higher rate than the benchmark U.S. community. This statistic is indicative of how the organism is spread, because S. pneumoniae is spread by aerosol droplets, from person to person. The fact that Alaskan’s must remain indoors and live in crowded conditions and poor ventilated homes, increases the transmission and therefore the incidence of S. pneumoniae in this area.
Ventilator-associated pneumonia is the most common and deadly healthcare associated infection, affecting up to 28 percent of ventilated patients. VAP is estimated to occur is 9-27 percent of all mechanically ventilated patients, with the highest risk being early in the course of hospitalization. VAP rates range from1.2 to 8.5 per 1000 ventilator days and are reliant on the definition used for diagnosis. Early onset VAP is defined as pneumonia that occurs within four days and this is
Friedman JF, Lee GM, Kleinman KP, Finkelstein JA. "Acute Care and Antibiotic Seeking for Upper Respiratory Tract Infections for Children in Day Care: Parental Knowledge and Day Care Center Policies." JAMA Pediatrics 157.4 (2003): 369-374. .
Most of the infections seen today are from H. influenzae and it is the most clinically relevant (lecture 1, slide 30).
Community acquired pneumonia (CAP), caused by viruses, ‘typical’ respiratory bacteria (as Streptococcus pneumoniae) or ‘atypical’ respiratory bacteria (as Mycoplasma pneumoniae and Chlamydia pneumoniae) is a frequent local infection in childhood (39). Pneumonia is the important cause of fatality for children around the world, accounting for about 30 percent of all childhood death. A particular pathogen is not identified in most cases, but both viruses, mainly respiratory syncytial and influenza virus, and bacteria, especially S. pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae, are significant pathogens(40). Numerous bacteria and viruses and their mixtures can cause this infection, but there is an absence of speedy and commercially accessible diagnostic
Pneumonia is a lung infection caused by bacteria, viruses, or fungi that inflame the air sacs in the lungs and can causes them to fill with fluid or pus. This can cause coughing, a build up of phlegm, difficulty breathing, fever, and chills. It is most serious if infants and young children, people over the age of 65, and those with a low immune system contract it. (Mayo Clinic Staff; Pneumonia definition)
It is imperative to be aware when elderly has been diagnosed with pneumonia, depending on severity it is essential to treat and prevent it. Pneumonia is inflammation in lung result by infection, bacteria, fungi, and virus, and described as lungs with fluid or pus causing cough with phlegm. There are two categories of pneumonia for elderly that will be discussed, community-associated pneumonia (CAP), and healthcare associated pneumonia (HAP). Why older people are susceptible and high risk to pneumonia and what are signs and symptoms that they should look after. Proper assessment to treat pneumonia and how to prevent it is necessary, since there is also confirmation that it lasting impact to elderly. Now, pneumonia in elderly people is the one of the leading cause of hospitalization depending on severity either mild or serious it
Waking up in the middle of the night when sick is flat out frustrating for the adult. Waking up in the middle of the night to your three-year-old toddler not being able to breathe is flat out terrifying. Three thoughts seem to circulate in your brain as you rush into their room in the middle of the night. The first is: what it wrong with them? They seemed fine when you put them to bed hours ago. As you assess the big picture, your mind can’t help but wonder what to do for them or how to help them because you have no idea why they seem to have to trouble breathing. You attempt to try not to panic at the little lips that look like they might be turning blue while at the same time the thought of ambulance or driving to the emergency room flashes through your mind. This can be just one scenario to children who are stricken with a Respiratory syncytial viral infection.
Ventilator-acquired pneumonia (VAP) is defined by the Center for Disease Control as “A pneumonia where the patient is on mechanical ventilation for >2 calendar days on the date of event, with day of ventilator placement being Day 1” (2014). Pneumonia is an unfortunate risk factor of being intubated for any period of time due to the increase chance for aspiration. Aspiration of gastric contents is a major route for bacteria to enter the lungs. Intubation increases the patient’s risk of acquiring infections compared to patients who are not intubated. The factors that might increase the patient’s chances of developing ventilat...
November 16 2002, A farmer in Guangdong province within southeastern China, entered a local hospital with an illness that was believed to be an extreme case of atypical pneumonia. Later, more and more patients begin arriving at hospitals across the globe with a serious illness that displayed all the signs and symptoms of what could have been atypical Pneumonia. The only difference was that these pneumonia cases were suddenly more severe than most cases throughout history. Soon after, these flu-like cases caught the attention of the World Health Organization (WHO). Due to the severity of these cases and how furiously infection took over, WHO established a global alert to all hospitals to be aware of a severe form of pneumonia that appears to
A physician can give out vaccinations and talk with the people to take better care of themselves to help prevent them from getting it. For the treatment part it will vary on the cause of the disease. If one has the viral pneumonia, he or she will have to take an antiviral medication that can be prescribed to them over the counter, while the antibiotics are used to heal fungal and bacterial pneumonia ("Pneumonia: 5 things to know." CNN Wire, 4 Apr. 2017”). For example, someone can help prevent this from happening to themselves by taking advantage of the vaccinations, stop smoking, drinking alcohol, and by wearing a mask in dirty or dusty places. This can expresses how one can prevent this from getting into their body system ("Pneumonia: 5 things to know." CNN Wire, 4 Apr.