A Screening to Diagnose Asthma

While unfortunately asthma is not a curable disease, for most asthmatics its can be well controlled meaning there will less symptoms or flare-ups and limits to your life. With correct medication, knowledge about the disease and skills, asthma shouldn’t stop you. There are many treatment options available when it comes to asthma. Asthma treatments vary from your basic asthma inhalers to steroids and other anti-inflammatory medicines and asthma nebulizer (Breathing Machine). (Anon., n.d.) The role that medical practitioners play with asthma is a very precise job. This role includes assessment, diagnosis, prescription of regular medications, provision of written action plans, and regular review as well as managing asthma flare-ups. Asthma-related visits to a general practitioner may occur for a variety of reasons, including: the acute or reactive management of asthma symptoms, a visit for maintenance activities, such as monitoring and prescription of regular medications and referral to other health professionals. (Anon.,

In this essay, I need to reflect on the situation that taken place during my clinical assignment to develop and utilize my experiences on the assessment and intervention of asthmatic patient in my work place. In this reflection, I am going to use Gibbs (1988) Reflective Cycle. This model is a recognised framework for my reflection. Gibbs (1988) consists of six stages to complete one cycle which is able to improve my healthcare practices continuously and learning from the experience for better practice in the future. The cycle starts with a description of the situation, next is the analysis of the

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Asthma is a respiratory disease that many people deal with every single day. “According to World Health Organization, approximately 180,000 people die from asthma each year.” (Jardins and Burton 187) Most people never think of asthma as a life threatening disease, but it can be crucial. As the number of people with asthma increases, the more likely you are to come in contact with someone who has been diagnosed with this disease. Asthma is a severe breathing problem that has many complications that is dealt with daily like shortness of breath, chronic cough, tightness of the chest and shortness of breath, my main focus is childhood asthma, allergic asthma, and medication to treat asthma.

Putting on AIRS is a free program for residents of Connecticut who have a diagnosis of asthma, and who may benefit from a home visit by a Certified Asthma Educator and an Environmental Specialist. Darlene had a home visit on March 4th. Enclosed you’ll find the signed release of information which permits the program to make available the summary of the visit. In addition, find the Asthma Control Test (ACT), taken from the Measures of Asthma Assessment and monitoring document page 67; “Patient Self-Assessment” (EPR-2 1997) that her mom completed at the time of

The MDI may be placed in the mouth with the lips sealed around it, placed 1 to 2 inches away from the opened mouth, or attached to a spacer or holding chamber with the end of the device placed in the mouth and the lips sealed around it.

Asthma is a chronic condition affecting the respiratory system and has a considerable impact on both individuals and a population. Everybody is susceptible to asthma, some more than others, depending of a variety of factors including, age, sex, geographical location and income. Asthma is particularly prevalent in younger children and the elderly and while it can be fatal, most people have mild cases of asthma that are relatively easy to treat. The condition mainly impacts an individual’s physical ability to contribute to a community.

I would allow them to write down what triggers they are aware of and make sure they post that list on their refrigerator as a reminder. In addition to that, I would provide with information on how to get specific testing done to identify in depth. I would explain to them what an Asthma Trigger Inventory (AVI) is. An AVI is a 32-item list that involves measuring the patient’s occurrences of asthma attacks due to triggers on six subscales (Ritz, Bobb & Griffiths, 2014). For example, some of those triggers are psychological factors, such as depressed mood, being upset. Animal allergens for example are animal hair or dander such as cat or dog. Physical factors are activity triggers such as running or going up a flight of stairs. Infection triggers are triggers that are influenced by the common cold or the flu. Lastly, air pollution triggers are triggers that involve the environment such as smoke or perfume (Ritz, Bobb & Griffiths, 2014). The family were able to identify that the patient was allergic to cats and that they kept the cats situated in the

The best way to diagnose asthma is to see a doctor to review any medical and family history and discuss the type and frequency of symptoms. It is also recommended to have a physical exam and participate in a lung function tests, also known as the pulmonary function tests. Some of the tests

In a report conducted by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, (2011) on statistics from National Health Interview survey CDC concluded that people with asthma need to have access to health care and proper medications which they need to use. If combined with self-management skills and evidence-based interventions, that modify the environment to reduce or eliminate risk factors such as allergens and irritants, most people with asthma can be symptom-free (CDC, 2011).

A screening template can be developed that can assist the nurse in performing a thorough assessment of an asthmatic patient. This questionnaire should be at an appropriate education level and question should be simple and direct. The questions should focus on the presence or absence of symptoms, activity limitations, exacerbations, missed workdays, and frequency of use of prescribed medications.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory lung disease that affects approximately 22 million people in the United States. Six million of those people are children, making it the most common chronic disease of children (“What is Asthma” and National 1). Asthma may be associated with morbidity, mortality, and diminished quality of life. Asthma is considered a long-term disease because there is currently no cure (Young). Further defining this disorder will be achieved by explaining the disease and symptoms, addressing how it is acquired, ways physicians diagnose it, and elaborating on treatments.

We spoke with an emergency medicine physician about his experiences with asthma. He told us that he sees multiple patients for asthma related incidents each day. If children have more moderate or severe asthma they typically have an asthma action plan and use a peak flow meter to decide whether they should go to the hospital. He also told us that asthma attacks are very obvious when they come into the ER so they don’t typically do much testing to make sure that it is an asthma attack. Lastly, he told us they do not diagnose asthma in the ER, but rather refer them back to their primary care physician after their ER visit.

3. What components of the patient’s asthma management plan should be monitored during a home visit?

There isn’t exactly a known cause for asthma. But researchers think that genetics and environmental factors play a factor into the diagnosis of asthma. Some of these factors are: