Asthma Medicine Paper

Asthma
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Background
Asthma attacks can be sudden and fatal highlighting the risk of complications and health e outcome when the condition is not properly managed. In particular, severe asthma can cause the lungs to collapse especially among pediatric patients who may otherwise seem healthy at first (Briscoe, 2012). Asthma is a chronic condition affecting the inflammation of pulmonary airways as well as bronchial hyperresponsiveness manifested in lower airway obstruction. Nonetheless, there is no single test to determine asthma highlighting the need to identify the signs and symptoms associated with asthma, while treating asthma, there is a need to focus on the airway smooth muscle (ASM). Allergic asthma is often triggered by allergic reaction and it can be partially reversed through medication, but non allergic asthma is triggered by other factors, and can also be reversed with medication (aafa.org, 2015). Acute asthmatic conditions are more sudden and severe when they first appear, while the chronic conditions develop gradually, and if acute asthma is not managed it may develop into chronic asthma.
Pathophysiology of chronic asthma and acute asthma exacerbation
Asthma comes about as a result of the inflammation of airways surrounding the lungs. Asthmatic patients suffer inflammation of the airways since the muscles around the airways tight after swelling. The air cannot move through the lungs and this worsens the asthma symptoms including shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing and chest tightness (Glissmann, 2012). There are various triggers of asthma whereby allergens, physical exertion and occupational infection are the most common. The main characteristic of asthma is airway hyper-responsiveness (Huether, & McCance, 2012). Typically, the exposure to allergens triggers asthmatic attacks whereby there are contractions and spasm of the smooth muscle in the airway, and as the airway lumen decrease there is airflow destruction. The body responds through producing the immunoglobulin antibodies and in cases where there are allergens then the body responds by releasing the antibodies.
The acute asthma exacerbation is related to the response of the lower airway after environmental exposure, with the respiratory virus infection one of the most common factors related to environmental exposure. Airway inflammation occurs together with the airflow obstruction as well as heightened airway responsiveness. The airway inflammation increases the risk of swollen bronchial membranes, while the mucus secretion obstructs the airways and also obstructs airflow. There is likely to be cardiovascular alterations among patients with acute asthma since the cardiovascular functions are impaired. Besides virus infection, other triggers of asthma exacerbation are previous history of asthma, allergen, environmental pollutants, irritants and medications like aspirin.
Age and pathophysiology of asthma
Age is a factor that affects the pathophysiology of chronic asthma, and the case of young children between 5 and 12 years of age show the need to undertake asthma management focusing on the physiology of the children in diagnosing chronic asthma, there is a need to exclude other respirato...