Diagnosis of Asthma

The purpose of diagnostic investigation is to first rule out other conditions and secondly to assess the severity of the asthma. A thorough case history allows the doctor to identify the characteristic signs and symptoms of asthma, assess the severity and monitor the success of the treatment in the future. It is accompanied by a thorough examination of the respiratory system and identification of other clinical features that may or may not be related to asthma.

There are four broad categories for the classification of asthma :

• Mild intermittent asthma where the symptoms such as wheezing, breathlessness and/or coughing are mild and present at most 2 days in a week and not more than 2 nights in a month.
• Mild persistent asthma where the symptoms occur more than twice in a week but is limited to at most one episode in a day.
• Moderate persistent asthma where the symptoms occur only once a day and more than one night in a week.
• Severe persistent asthma where the symptoms continue throughout the day on most days of the week and often arises at night as well.

Specialized investigation will more accurately measure the functioning of the respiratory system and this is known as pulmonary function tests, or simply lung function tests. Spirometry and peak flow are the two most widely used methods to assess the respiratory function. With spirometry, the volume of air can be measured which correlates with the degree of narrowing of the airway. A peak flow meter measures the force of expiration. Both tests are difficult to perform on younger children as it requires patient cooperation. Other tests like a metacholine challenge and nitric oxide test will also confirm the diagnosis of asthma. Allergen testing may be useful for patients with allergic asthma as it helps to identify trigger factors.

Treatment of Asthma

Asthma treatment depends on a number of factors like the severity of the condition or whether it is allergic asthma or non-allergic asthma. The medication can be divided into acute treatment and chronic/long term treatment. The aim of asthma management is to prevent acute attacks or at least minimize the frequency of these attacks while easing, or if possible even resolving, the symptoms. However, the symptoms will often return should the medication be discontinued and therefore it is imperative that asthmatic patients adhere to the treatment protocol laid out by the doctor.

Both acute and chronic medication may be inhaled or ingested (orally) although some acute medication can be administered intravenously. The range of medication may have one or more of the following effects :

• Reduce airway inflammation – corticosteroids, beta agonists (adrenergic)
• Open the airways (bronchodilation) – beta agonists, theophylline, anticholinergic

For allergic asthma, a combination of drugs along with antihistamines and decongestants may be used to reduce the allergic response, reduce airways inflammation and open the airways.

Read more on asthma information.

Simple Explanation of Asthma

Asthma is the chronic inflammation of the bronchi and bronchioles due to an increased hypersensitivity of the walls of the airways. When the walls of the bronchi and bronchioles are inflamed, it swells, secretes more mucus and the muscles in the wall may constrict. All of these effects serves to narrow the lumen of the airway and therefore restrict airflow.

In asthma, the reason for this narrowing is that the walls of the airway are extremely sensitive (hypersensitivity) and react to various stimuli (hyper-responsive) that may not affect other individuals. This is referred to as allergic asthma. It is associated with atopy, a constitutional allergic state, which also gives rise to other allergic conditions like atopic dermatitis and allergic rhinitis. These three conditions – atopic dermatitis, asthma and allergic rhinitis – are referred to as the allergic triad.

However, sometimes asthma is not related to allergies and may be termed non-allergic asthma. This is more frequently seen in the workplace (occupational asthma). There is usually underlying airway disease that causes narrowing and obstruction. Asthma may also be associated with certain drugs, like aspirin, and physical activity despite the absence of allergies. It is more likely for these types of asthma to be seen in a person with a history of childhood asthma.

Causes of Asthma

As discussed above, asthma is due to a hyper-reactive airway that is triggered by the inhalation of allergens. This commonly includes :

• House dust mite (HDM)
• Pollen
• Animal dander (particularly from pets)
• Cockroaches
• Fungi and molds

Organic and non-organic dusts, fumes from gases, smoke, certain drugs and exercise may all exacerbate existing asthma and long term exposure may even lead to the development of asthma.

Signs and Symptoms

Asthma is sometimes commonly referred to as wheezing. However, the term wheeze describes the abnormal breathing sound characteristic of asthma. It typically sounds as a whistling or rattling noise that is associated with the labored breathing. Other signs and symptoms includes shortness of breath, tightness of the chest and coughing. Patients often report the symptoms worsening with cold weather, exercise, exposure to cigarette smoke, dust and other allergens, as well as with a common cold or flu.

Asthmatics may be asymptomatic (have no symptoms) between attacks and acute episodes can very severe and even require hospitalization. It is possible, however, for an asthmatic patient to experience ongoing symptoms for weeks and months with no easing of symptoms for even short periods. Some forms of asthma like cough-variant asthma may not present with the typical signs and symptoms apart from coughing. At other times, some patients may only experience symptoms at night when asleep – nocturnal asthma. It is therefore not uncommon for asthma to be initially mistaken for chest infections and other respiratory illnesses.

Read more on asthma diagnosis and treatment.

Almost every human suffer allergy at any stage of life whatever the allergen is. We used to run to doctors all the time but there are certain other possible solutions are also available that provide allergy relief for sure.

Allergy relief can be simple, without the use of harsh chemicals. Many of us do not know the fact that different anti-allergy drugs only minimize the symptoms and have absolutely no effect on the cause of allergy.

The key reason behind all the allergies is the weak immunity system. Hence you want to avoid inflammatory attacks you should try to strengthen you immunity system through natural products.

Some research have proven that anti-allergy drugs are not suitable for the hypertensive patients as these drugs shoot the blood pressure up and could create a life death situation. Few of these drugs are highly CNS acting and cause drowsiness, hence there is caution that you should not use these drugs during driving or handling heavy machinery. You may find a flood of allergy info on World Wide Web about the enhancement of immunity and use of vitamins.

There are number of reasons which are contributing in the steady growth of allergy cases. According to some scientist, it is our stressful life that is making our immunity weak due to unbalanced chemical proportion while exposing us to the variant allergens. That leads to the truth that somehow if we balance our body’s mechanism and fill the deficiency of different vital chemicals, we would be able to coupe the allergies.

In this particular study 124 infants with low birth weight were analyzed by the Dr. Jill S. Halterman to see the impact of changeable environment, after one year of discharge form hospital.

“Through this study, we founded that respiratory diseases are very common among under weight infants in first 12 months of their life. In reality, 1 in 10 infants had already been prognosis with asthma at relatively younger age.”

According to the official report, 47 percent of infants required essential care and visit to specialists and 11 percent need hospitalization for respiratory ailments.

In the analysis 82 percent infants have an impact with indoor environmental trigger, and 25 percent were exposed to the second hand smoke at home. “Children who breathe in smoke and those who have pest exposure at home, were on high risk of respiratory ailment and need first aid in comparison with those who were not exposed,” Halterman reported.

While controlling relevant factors, including heritage and allergies, both living with smoker and exposed to pests were independently related to the acute care.

These are important findings, because these show that, if the changes in the environment are made, it will potentially improve health of these infants significantly.”

Drug detox is a collection of interventions used to control acute drug intoxication and drug withdrawal. It refers to an eradication of the abused substance from a patient’s body. The process of detoxification focuses at minimizing the physical effects rooted by the additive substances.

The patient should make his/her mind before the start of the treatment. Improper preparation has been proved as the leading cause of treatment failure. The patient should have a desire to change his present life. Patient should visit rehab centre, several times before the treatment. Physician can play a vital role in the treatment process by motivating the patient and clearing all his queries.

Alcohol detoxification

Alcohol detoxification, for alcohol dependent people, is the sudden termination of alcohol intake coupled with the substitution of alcohol with alternate drugs that have similar effects in order to alcohol detox.  Need of detoxification depends upon an individual’s age, medical status, and history of alcohol intake.

The most difficult but important part is the acceptance of truth of alcoholism. But keep in mind, sooner you get treatment, brighter are your chances for a successful recovery. In our society the myth triumph that, an alcohol problem is a sign of moral weakness. In fact, alcoholism is a disease that is no more a sign of weakness than is asthma.

Treatment

Type of treatment depends on the severity of alcoholism and the resources available in your community. Treatment might consist of detoxification, taking doctor-prescribed medications, such as disulfiram used to prevent relapse. Talented counsels teach alcoholics to recognize situations and feelings that trigger the need of drinking and to search new channels to cope with the situation.

As the family member support play a key role in recovery process, many rehab programs also offer brief marital counseling and family therapy as part of the treatment process. Programs may also link individuals with vital community resources, such as legal assistance, job training, childcare, and parenting classes.

A new study conducted by researchers at ‘Barts’ and ‘The London School of Medicine and Dentistry’ has found a key component of the body’s own responses to allergens. Allergens are the substances that cause the immunity system of the body to trigger a fight against the foreign bodies. These foreign bodies could be just dust, pollen, peanut, milk, penicillin etc. and since they are not recognized by our immune system, body reacts to them. The symptoms occur in the form of inflamed airway or runny nose or itching in the eyes or rashes on the skin. So this key component which triggers this fight can be targeted to reduce the allergic reactions.

In contrary to the all the major treatments for asthma and allergies which target on reducing symptoms , this new study targets the immune system of the body.

As most of the allergies are mere responses of our immune system to the foreign elements, they can be avoided if the immune system is slowed down. However this involves a risk. The person may be left prone to infection since there would be no immunity to fight. So this treatment could be administered only in the extreme cases. The conventional treatment would continue focusing on managing the symptoms of allergy.

This limitation has been ruled out by the BBSRC team led by Professor Bart Vanhaesebroeck who has proven in its study that the allergic reaction can be hampered before the occurrence of the symptoms without affecting the immune system of the body by aiming at “p110delta”.

“P110delta” is a molecule, belonging to the family of eight proteins called ‘PI3Ks’.  These proteins control various biological functions of the body. Their involvement in various diseases including cancer makes them an important target for further research and development in producing an effective drug to combat these ailments.

The researchers tried to go behind the specific diseases associated with the eight members of the ‘PI3Ks’ proteins so that specific drugs could be developed with reduced side effects. They brought in use various genetic techniques to determine this.

In the recent study, the research confirmed that ‘p110delta’ is found to be playing more important role in allergic reactions than ‘p110gamma’, another member of the ‘PI3K’ family. So now they can be targeted to develop ‘p110delta’ blockers. Soon their clinical use can be expected to enter in the human arena.

Dr Khaled Ali, the lead researcher informed that ‘p110delta’, identified in 1997 had many apprehensions associated with it. However, the recent work has shown its ability to control the body’s reaction to an allergen and thus prevent the symptoms to occur.

This study has already confirmed that ‘p110delta’ is the key player among the ‘PI3K’ molecules. So Professor Vanhaesebroeck is quite hopeful that a drug could be developed very soon to combat the problem of allergies and a therapy could be devised for not only controlling the symptoms which occur in the body but also would be able to target the real causes.

This study promises to get a revolutionary way to fight against the allergies which cause misery to millions of human beings.

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This research was conducted in the leadership of Dr Antoine Magnan at the ‘University of Nantes’ in France. Dr Magnan and his colleague researchers explained that dry powder inhalers containing medication are common and very popular among the majority of the patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Researchers observed that, “The effectiveness in delivering drugs to the lungs depends on correctly performed inhalation maneuvers”.

Dr. Antoine Magnan and his team of researchers collected the results of almost 50 studies that were conducted previously by several researchers. These results were analyzed and reviewed. Evaluation of commonly adopted inhaling techniques applicable in patients with respiratory diseases enabled them to observe and highlight the most common errors made by patients when using these devices.

Findings of this evaluation show that almost 94% of the patients whose medical data and practices were studies were not using their inhalers correctly. This analysis depended on the type of inhaler and particular method of assessment.

According to the researchers, among the most common mistakes, not breathing out before using the inhaler, not holding the breath after inhalation, and failing in breathing deeply enough when inhaling the medication are the most common ones.
The study reveals that many participants demonstrated improper inhaler techniques and almost 25% of them never got any type of instructions for using the inhaler in right way.

Even the patients who received proper instructions about using the inhalers correctly did not have any idea about the quality and duration of their instructions. Doctors also did not care for conducting adequate reviews and follow up checks subsequent to the medications.

Researchers reported the results of their study in the journal “Respiratory Medicine” and explained that a large population of patients is committing errors in dealing with the dry powder inhalers and this may also increase the risks of insufficient drug delivery. Such a situation will, researchers say, adversely affect the drug efficiency and would possibly lead to” inadequate control of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease”.

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Copying and publishing any article from our site is strictly NOT allowed.