Asthma Issues

Asthma is one of the most problematic pulmonary diseases in the world. Asthma affect 8.5% of children in America. Medical professionals who treat asthma knows that treatment varies for each patient. There are some patients who makes a full recovery of the pulmonary disease and live their lives like a normal person. However, there are some patients who have to live their life with asthma who have reoccurring asthma attack. There are also people who develop worse pulmonary diseases that can potentially kill the patient. The reason why I chose to write my paper on asthma is because I have asthma. I have been in and out of the hospital because of asthma during my childhood. Asthma is also what inspired me to go through my career path. The people who helped me with my asthma is Respiratory Therapist. They were the people who helped treat me for my asthma so, I want to become a Respiratory Therapist so that I can help treat patients that have pulmonary diseases such as asthma.

What is asthma? Asthma is a hereditary pulmonary disease in which a person's airway become inflamed, narrow and swelled. This then created mucus in the airway which causes difficulty in breathing. Asthma usually begins in infancy and the severity levels then develop during the patient's life. Asthma is more common in boys at a young age but if it is adolescence it is more common in girls. Early physicians have recognized this problematic disease so the start of research about asthma began. Asthma has been around for centuries. The earliest recording of asthma was dated back in 2600 B.C. in China. The recorded diagnosis was noisy breathing. Fast forward to 400 B.C., the honorable Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, was the first to use the term asthma. (History of Asthma) Since the early century's asthma has been studied to try to help cure and to find out why does this disease persist any children, adults, and the elderly and physicians needed to find an answer or a better understanding of the disease so they can predict and treat the disease. There has been many studies and research on asthma to see the likelihood of a patient to contract the pulmonary disease. One study that focus solely on asthma was the Tucson Children's Respiratory which studied the first 6 years of asthmatic patient life. In the article, Pediatric Asthma: Natural History, Assessment and Treatment, Ronit Herzog and Susanna Cunningham talk about a study that the Tuscan Children Respiratory conducted on asthma. In their study it showed that asthma is more common in minorities than the majority. Statistics show that asthma is more common in poor rural communities than higher income communities due to pollution and other low-income problems. In the study, they found that 51 percent of the children had never wheezed before, 20 percent of the children wheezing only occurred in a short amount of time (3 years average). 15 percent of the children however, developed asthma later in their childhood. 14 percent of the children developed asthma during the first 3 years of their life and it persisted over 6 years. This data showed that 1/3 of the children had wheezing age 3 or lower and still had symptoms of asthma at the age of 6. 60 percent of the children of the children stopped wheezing by the age of 6. The data displayed 40 percent of the children that they studied had developed asthma and it persisted past the age of 6. This is a problem because asthma as patients get older, they still have to deal with symptoms pertains to asthma. The data also showed that the rate of people developing asthma is getting higher. In 2016, over 8.3 percent of people, young and old, in the United States had developed asthma. That means over 27 million people in the United States have asthma. (cdc.gov)

People with asthma has to be careful because there are a lot of triggers that can cause an asthma attack. Some of the triggers include pets, allergens such as dust and pollen, or even laughing too hard. These are huge risk factors that asthmatic patients have to deal with every day. In the article, Types, frequency and impact of asthma triggers on patients' lives: a quantitative study in five European countries, Emma elder and her colleagues all did a study on the amount of triggers that people with asthma have to face. They did a questionnaire on a group of participant who had asthma who were from Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK. In the questionnaire, participants had to answer whether or not if they experience any trigger that were associated with asthma. They were also asked about how well they control their asthma during the day and night. The results of the survey showed that 85% of the participants had experience asthma triggers during the day and 79% of the participants showed asthma symptoms during the night during the last 7 days of that week. These percentages show how much that asthma have an effect on people every day. The data also showed the percentages of what type of triggers causes asthma symptoms. The results showed that 72% people were effected by dust; the data showed that 69% of the people indicated that cold and flu infections were a factor; 43% of the people indicated that emotion such as laughter or sadness also was a trigger. There are many different triggers that can be effect people. People can try to avoid it; however there are some triggers that is present in their own home. In the article, Perceived Triggers of Asthma: Key to Symptom Perception and Management, Thomas Ritz conducted a study on asthma triggers and where they are produced. One trigger that Ritz touch on is that household pets are a trigger to relatively to people of a lower age. Exercise is also is a trigger to people who are overweight or obese. The emotional trigger of asthma is associated to people who has severe asthma. One negative aspect of emotional trigger is that it may cause the likelihood of depression or anxiety.

As stated, about 8.3 percent of the American population have developed asthma and is currently living with the symptoms of asthma. However, sometime the patient can't fully control the symptoms of asthma and it becomes severe enough for complication; this may ultimately result in death. The mortality rate of asthma have been persistent each year due to pollution and weather intensity. In 2016, the estimated number of people who died from asthma in the world was 420,000. (globalasthmareport.org) this number showed that there are still complications that are unpredictable and difficult to control. In the article, Asthma-related deaths, Antonio Molino and his colleague did research on the mortality rate of asthma. Molino stated that over 250,000 people die each year due to asthma. Molino then touch on the risk factors that may cause the death by asthma. One of the risk factors is Near Fatal Asthma. Molino states that N.F.A is one of the most severe complications of asthma. It is caused by carbon dioxide tension greater than 55mmHG. What leads to death from N.F.A is cardiac arrhythmias and asphyxia; this leads to complications of invasive mechanical ventilation which is needed to help control patient's breathing. (Asthma-related deaths)

Asthma is a problematic respiratory disease; however there are steps and method for treating asthma.

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