Case Study Asthma

Asthma itself is an inflammatory disease characterized by increased airway responsiveness due to a variety of stimulus. The inflammation causes the hyper-responsiveness than in turn causes bronchiolar smooth muscle constriction, resulting in obstruction of airflow. Some

Asthma is when someone has trouble breathing. This is caused by spasms in the bronchi of the lungs. It can be triggered by allergies or sensitivities to something specific. Your bodies become stimulated and the through constricts, giving a feeling of not being able to breath. This can become very severe and is able to kill.

Task analysis is the process of obtaining information about a job by determining the duties, tasks, and activities involved and the knowledge, skills, and abilities required in performing each task. There can be broken down into six

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.

1. Asthma as a word means, “To breathe hard.” Just as the definition of the word, people with asthma have a hard time breathing, tightness in the chest and wheezing can occur. It is also a chronic disease of the respiratory system, which the respiratory passages in the lungs become oversensitive and overactive. (i)

Asthma, as defined by the NIH, “is a chronic lung disease that inflames and narrows the airways. Asthma causes recurring periods of wheezing (a whistling sound when you breathe), chest tightness, shortness of breath, and coughing.” (National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute [NHLBI], 2015). There are risk factors that may predispose a child to developing asthma, which include having allergies, eczema, and/or having parents who have asthma. Asthma is not a disease that is preventable. (NHLBI, 2015). The risk or likelihood that someone would have asthma is based on the biological makeup of the individual that would predispose them to the disease, rather than behavioral, environmental, or even social factors.

- Another initiative of Asthma Australia, Asthma Kids is a fun, interactive website to teach children with asthma about their condition.

Asthma is a disease that affects a person's lungs by causing repeated episodes of symptoms such as shortness of breath, tightness of chest, wheezing, and coughing. Asthma affects people of all ages, but it often develops during childhood. It is a very common chronic illness in children and as a result, consequences that can occur when it is uncontrolled is often forgettable. Since children have smaller airways than adults, it makes asthma especially serious for them. In 2009, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, stated that roughly one in ten children develop asthma

Asthma is a chronic airway disorder marked by inflammation. The inflammation affects multiple structures involved in the respiratory system of the body. These structures include the trachea, the bronchi, and the bronchioles. Bronchoconstriction is the main response that occurs during an asthma attack. The bronchoconstriction can be attributed to many different factors including edema, an excessive amount of mucus, muscle damage and bronchospasms. Bronchospasms are “… sharp contractions of bronchial smooth muscle” (Lynn & Kushto-Reese, 2015). The muscle damage can lead to severe airway impairment and a perforated epithelium which then allows easy entry of the allergens and triggers.

Childhood asthma is a complex chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways that involves both genetic and environmental factors, and can involve potentially permanent airway obstruction, airway hyperresponsiveness, and multicellular inflammation. During an acute episode (which vary in severity and duration), the child presents with symptoms such as wheezing, respiratory distress, cough, chest pain, shortness of breath, and fatigue with exertion (Linzer, 2007). A stimulus (trigger) initiates an airway response that stimulates inflammation, bronchospasm, and increased mucus production. Triggers include cold air, pollen, dust, pet dander, cigarette smoke, exercise, infection, medications,

There are several patho-physiologies of asthma. The mechanism by which asthma occurs is caused by inflammatory cell infiltration, inflammatory mediators, bronchoconstriction, airway edema, airway hyper responsiveness, airway remodeling, airway inflammation, the occurrence of persistent changes in airway structure, gene-by-environment interactions, atopy or the genetic predisposition for the development of immunoglobin E (IgE)-mediated response to common aeroallergens, sex, and environmental factors. Bronchoconstriction is airway narrowing and a subsequent interference with airflow. During bronchoconstriction, bronchial smooth muscle contraction occurs quickly to narrow the airways after being exposed to a variety of stimuli including allergens

Asthma is a disease that affects over 25 million people in the United States, including 7 million children. Asthma affects the lower airways and is characterized by bronchial hyperresponsiviness and decreased airflow. People suffer from asthma attacks, which cause the lungs to become swollen and inflamed thus making it difficult to breath. These attacks range in severity from mild, moderate or severe. Symptoms include wheezing, shortness of breath, coughing and chest pain. These symptoms can affect people on a daily basis or on occasion (Zanni, 2013).

In the United States, there are millions of adults and children who suffer with Asthma a chronic lung disease. Asthma can develop at any age and most asthma sufferers are between the ages of 6 to 40 years. Both my mother and I are Asthma sufferers, which is why I have chosen this disease to write about. My mother was young when she was diagnosed with this disease, she was fourteen years old; however, I was even younger, age three. Having to live with this disease you learn how to manage your symptoms to maintain a healthy quality of life.

Asthma is a chronic breathing condition that has no cure. However, the good news is that patients can live a normal life with the right treatment. Below is a list of treatments that are available for asthma:

Much research has been done in the past recently years about the genetics of asthma and what exactly causes it. Many all that have done research claim that asthma “ the procession from linkage to the actual identification of the gene has proven to be difficult” that being said plenty of work done in labs and experiments provide evidence of chromosomes, diseases, and of the environment that shows asthma is genetic (Koppelman et al). In this paper I hope to provide the average person with the same knowledge that I have attained by reading theses scholarly articles that ultimately showed that, even though the exacts of the genes of asthma are unknown, educational information has been provided to make many hypothesizes in order