Symptoms And Treatment Of Cystic Fibrosis

Preview: Today I will be discussing the what is cystic fibrosis, how it affects our youth, and ways to back to those we have lost.

Cystic fibrosis, a debilitating, genetic disease, disturbs the mucus glands of the lungs, pancreas, and other organs. To fully comprehend the everyday impacts, envision Emily, a fourteen-year-old girl struggling to adapt to high school life with cystic fibrosis. She spends over three hours a day exclusively nebulizing and performing airway clearance therapy; this time does not include doctor’s visits or other therapists’ appointment (Sawicki, 2008). Due to the high treatment demand, Emily feels stressed since she cannot find adequate time for social participation, homework, plus added teenage milestones. Consequently, cystic fibrosis influences many of her occupations. Attitude has a major impact on her overall progress of managing this serious, chronic medical challenge. A solid understanding of the entire person helps create an enriched treatment plan and improved outcomes.

Picture this. You are currently at the movies watching a film that you have been waiting to see for a long time and it is getting to the climax. The person right behind you coughs fairly often and begins to endure a coughing fit which disturbs you from watching the film. There are two ways you can react to the individual: the first is to vexingly stay quiet and try to continue enjoying the film and the second is to become angry and act impulsively (with the possibly lashing out). What you do not know is that this same individual is suffering from cystic fibrosis and is obviously unable to control his coughs; his condition is incurable, meaning he must live his entire life putting up with the symptoms. Many people would more likely react the second way mentioned above, but would you react that way also if you were aware of the horrible symptoms, conditions, and outcomes? If your answer is yes, then my next question is this: if it were you suffering from cystic fibrosis, would you want people to be bitter towards you over something you cannot control? That answer is more like it; to have knowledge of a certain illness is a benefit in order to have a more understanding and empathetic outlook.

Cystic Fibrosis is a life threatening condition that causes severe damage to the lungs and digestive system. Developing this condition can change a person's entire life. Depending on the severity of the condition a person can be affected by mild symptoms such as shortness of breath, all the way to severe symptoms such as rectal prolapse, or even death. Screening is done on infants in all 50 states; therefore if a child has inherited Cystic Fibrosis it will be known in the first months of life. As professional staff members of a nursing community it will be necessary to help prepare the child and the family for the life of Cystic Fibrosis.

For this assignment, we interviewed a teenage boy who has cystic fibrosis. The interviewee had a very strong grasp on his condition, due to the fact that he has lived with it his whole life. He has spent most of his life in a hospital, so he understands the details of his condition and its prognosis. Overall, the patient had a unique outlook on life due to the life expectancy of someone that has cystic fibrosis. However, he still lives life as any other teenage boy would despite the frequent hospital visits.

What is Cystic Fibrosis? How does it affect people living with it? Cystic Fibrosis, also known as CF, is a life-threatening hereditary disease. It is inherited by a faulty cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductor (CFTR) gene from each parent (Kowalczyk, 2014, p. 74). This faulty gene makes a defective protein that does not work well and causes the body to produce sticky, thick mucus and very salty sweat("About CF: Causes, Signs & Symptoms of Cystic Fibrosis,"

Five year old Ellis Miles undergoes numerous treatments each day to counteract the symptoms that accompany cystic fibrosis including physiotherapy, pills containing digestive enzymes, and a treatment which breaks up the mucus in her lungs. Cystic Fibrosis has numerous life threatening symptoms and while there is no cure, there are several treatments that a typical patient undergoes each day to combat these symptoms. The most prominent symptom associated with Cystic Fibrosis is a thick mucus that clogs up tubes that carry out crucial roles in the human body. This mucus especially affects the respiratory tract. Mucus builds up in the respiratory tract making it difficult for individuals with cystic fibrosis to have a frequent cough that produces a thick

I couldn’t imagine what it would be like growing up with a life threating condition that has no cure. Amanda Estep is a 21-year-old, college student and also a close friend of mine who has been battling Cystic Fibrosis since she was three years old. Cystic Fibrosis is a genetic condition that causes mucus to build up in the lungs and digestive system, making it hard to breath. “Basically everything in my body is thicker, so the mucus in my lungs is harder to break up and get out which causes frequent lung infections.” Amanda explained to me. Cystic Fibrosis also impacts her ability to digest food, resulting in her being underweight most of her life. While I have known Amanda since kindergarten, we have never talked in depth about how much she has to do to remain as healthy as possible. Hearing her explain her story made me realize how lucky I am to be healthy, and that’s something’s no one should take for granted. There is currently no cure for Cystic Fibrosis, but Amanda shared some of the many things she has to do in order to remain as healthy as possible. Some of those things includes being hospitalized for two weeks four or five times a year, taking many medications, and knowing how hard she can push herself.

​Cystic fibrosis is a disease that is continually affecting children and adults in the United States. This is an inherited and life-threatening disease which affects many organs in the body. According to the Center for Disease Control, there are an estimated 30,000 people affected by this disease today. There are also approximately 2,500 babies born each year with Cystic fibrosis and unfortunately there are millions of people unaware they even carry the gene for this disease.

Like all of us, those with cystic fibrosis want to live. To experience. Gold speaks of the looming mortality that all cystic fibrosis clients are living with every day. We are all mortal, although those with this disease just know that they are more likely to live a shorter life and they want to live it to the fullest (Picard, 2000). Personal knowledge allows a nurse to better understand a client’s needs and the things we may want to do when we ourselves are a little older, the adolescent with Cystic fibrosis may want to do earlier, before they no longer have that

Janicke, D. M., Mitchell, M. J., Quittner, A. L., Piazza-Waggoner, C., & Stark, L. (2008). The impact of behavioral intervention on family interactions at mealtime in pediatric cystic fibrosis. Children’s Health Care, 37(1), 49–66.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an inherited autosomal recessive disorder that affects the lungs and digestive system most often. In the United States some 30,000 children and adults have CF. There are approximately 1,000 new cases of cystic fibrosis diagnosed each year in the US with 70% of patients diagnosed with CF by the age of two, 40% of patients with CF are 18 or older. In the 1950's most children with CF did not survive to attend elementary school, but in 2006 the median age of survival was 37 years (Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 2007).

An disease that can people can get that deal with enzymes is Cystic Fibrosis. Cystic Fibrosis is an inherited disease that can cause the body to produce mucus that is extremely thick and sticky. The reason why it is thicker than normal is because the disease affects the cell epithelium. The epithelium the the layer of cells that lines the passages in the body's organs. This disease that affect two organs are lungs and pancreas. The thickness of the mucus cause breathing and digestive problem. This also means the thicker the mucus have trouble moving out of the lungs which causes bacteria to remain in the organ which causes the infection.

Cystic Fibrosis mainly affects the lungs but can also affect various other organs like the pancreas, liver, kidneys and the intestine. It builds up mucus in your airway which leads to blocked biliary and pancreatic ducts and possibly a malfunctioning liver. It can also lead to the intestine not being able to absorb nutrients properly. In every person the airway excretes

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is an autosomal recessive gene that causes a wide range of symptoms because there are over 1,000 changes or mutations that can occur within the cystic fibrosis transmembrane receptor (CFTR) protein. The CFTR protein is generally a chloride ion chain “regulated by cyclic adenosine monophosphate and therefore can act as a regulator of other electrolyte channels”(Grossman, S., & Grossman, L. 2005, p. 46). Typically this protein allows chloride ions to exit mucus-producing cells allowing water to flow in and thin the mucus. However, if the CFTR protein has been mutated, such as in cystic fibrosis, chloride ions cannot exit. This causes the mucus to thicken, become sticky, and obstruct the various channels it passes through. This build up of mucus also prevents bacteria from being cleaned from cells thoroughly increasing the patients risk for infections (Grossman, S., & Grossman, L. 2005). However, the severity of CF depends on whether the patients have complete or partial loss of the CFTR gene. If the person has the classic form of CF abnormalities of CFTR will commonly affect “…the respiratory, gastrointestinal, endocrine and metabolic, and genitourinary systems”(Schram, C. 2012). However, if people have atypical forms of CF their genetic disorder may only affect one of the organ systems and may not be found until the patient develops symptoms in their late childhood, early adolescence, or adulthood