Nursing Case Study Asthma

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airway that impacts a person’s and their family’s quality of life. In people with asthma, their airway becomes constricted with swelling and excessive mucous. This constriction or narrowing of the airway makes it difficult for the person with asthma to breath (Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 2009). If asthma is left uncontrolled, it leads to further wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath, tiredness, and stress. (Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 2009).

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.

Avoiding and controlling asthma triggers is important in every phase of the intervention process in order to manage the disease. However, many times because of lack of awareness and education, asthma

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.

Eight-year-old B.J. has had asthma for 2 years since he had acute bronchitis. He was tested for allergies and demonstrated marked responses to a number of animals, pollens, and molds. B.J. also has a history of asthma related to exposure to very cold weather.

About 10% of American children have asthma (Thakur et al., 2013). It is vital to understand what determinants cause childhood asthma to understand even with a low percentage, why it is still present. According to Williams et al., asthma is a health outcome which is a major impact on American youth (Williams et al., 2009). This health outcome not only impacts them throughout the years of being a child, but it has the potential of creating more serious health problems in the future. And without knowing what the causes are, it increases the rate asthma among children and prevents treatments from being implemented. It needs to be addressed by using results from prior studies in order to show how much of a problem childhood asthma is but also in finding and understanding the other underlying

I. Introduction: Looking at Asthma and breaking it down to fully understand the chronic disease.

Asthma is a chronic respiratory disorder in which inflammatory airway contraction reduces the flow of air into the lungs. The inflammation

Asthma is a condition that, when triggered by a specific inducement, causes a person’s airway to become

The control of asthma in both adults and children has proven to be a challenge owing to the intricacy involved in the management of the disease. According to the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA 1), the term refers to a clinical syndrome of “intermittent respiratory symptoms triggered by viral upper respiratory infections, environmental allergens or other stimuli and is characterized by nonspecific bronchial hyperesponsiveness and airways inflammation.” The severity of the disease is measured based on an individual’s lung function (FEV1), the number of times a patient uses a bronchodilator, and the symptoms a patient portrays at night (GINA 1).

Asthma is a common chronic disease worldwide affecting 1 in every 10 individuals, approximating to 2.3 million individuals in Australia (Asthma Australia, 2014). The aetiology of asthma is complex and multifactorial. It is characterised by airway inflammation, persistent airway hyper reactivity, intermittent airflow obstruction and airway remodelling (Maddox L, Schwartz DA, 2002). Asthma is more common amongst individuals living in inner regional and socioeconomically disadvantaged areas compared to those in major cities or outer regional areas (Asthma Australia, 2014).

A task force begins identifying asthma as one of the four priority areas seeking immediate attention. The plan put together was called: Asthma and the Environment; a Strategy to Protect Children. In addition to 5 other strategy ways that are called, strengthening and acceleration, implementation, establishment of coordination, and identification. Moreover, these factors were later changed around 1999, making the task force remap a new strategy. This strategy improvised more questions, so the task team had to explain the cost of asthma. Next, the task team had to comprehend the primary reason for preventing the asthma rate to decrease. Studies were shown from National Health Interview Survey and Medical Expenditures Panel Survey; explained asthma has one of the most common

In 2011, 26 million Americans reported having asthma, or about 1 in 12 (Successes of the National Asthma Control Program 2009-2014 Stories From “Addressing Asthma From A Public Health Perspective” Grantees). In 2009 alone, there were over two million asthma-related emergency room visits and almost half a million hospitalizations; in 2010, 156 children and 3,248 adults died from asthma (CDC, 2013). Fortunately, asthma related morbidity and mortality are largely preventable through improved patient education and medical management. Thus, the healthy People 2020 Respiratory Disease Objective 3 (RD-3) aims to reduce emergency department (ED) visits for asthma (CDC, 2015).

Society fails to realize the serious effects asthma has on the body. Asthma is defined as an illness in which the airways are blocked or too narrow for air to pass through. Asthma affects people of all ages, but it most often starts during early childhood. The United States alone has more than 25 million people known to have been born with or developed asthma. It is documented that approximately 7 million of these people are children. It isn 't evident why some people are infected with asthma and others are not, but it is quite clear that due to a combination of environmental and genetic factor that asthma is not attracted to a certain group of people. Some environmental factors that cause this illness include air pollutants, airborne allergies, pollen, animal dander, and the list goes on.The physical effects can range from a simple cough as far as not being able to breathe at all. This can cause major damage to the lungs as time persist. It is more common for younger children from the ages of 5-14 to show more consistent side effects of this illness. As these children grow older their asthma attacks lessen as their abdomen expands from age. There are numerous medications that can are prescribed each year in efforts to control the spontaneous symptoms of this disease.

As a school nurse who plays an important role in the health and well-being of the student, we all know, healthy children learn and focus better in a conducive environment. Therefore, it is very significant that she understands the pathophysiology of asthma. Asthma can be acute or chronic depending on how often the episode occurs. Asthma, as stated earlier, is not curable but can be managed well with medications and prevention of triggers in an individual. Asthma can be genetic or environmental and it affects the respiratory function in the body. Firstly, the respiratory system is one of the largest organ systems in the body. It comprises of the nasal passage, oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, trachea, bronchi tubes, and lungs. The primary function