Bronchial asthma is a disease which can lead to significant limitations in physical, emotional and social aspects of life.
A disease may cause distress especially if it is unpredictable. Many people do not notice the effect of asthma on their lives and declare that they have "normal" lifestyle. This is due to the fact that the concept of "normality" possibly based on the changes and limitations they have already incorporated into their way of life.
The incidence of chronic non-specific lung diseases is now 58-60 on 1,000 people, almost reaching the prevalence of cardiovascular disease. Social and medical importance of asthma is comparable with diseases such as diabetes and peptic ulcer disease.
Patients also have a neuropsychiatric disorder. Studies showed the prevalence of pathological types of attitude to the disease. In particular, paranoid and neurotic types of attitude to the disease dominated.
Studying in asthma-school is very important for patients. Increased knowledge about the disease, its treatment and prevention of exacerbations, give them confidence and the ability to behave during asthma attacks, finding a team of people suffering from the same pathology, informal contact with the medical staff helps to reduce emotional stress without the use of special psychotherapeutic techniques.
The reasons are:
- Allergy;
- Infection;
- Genetic predisposition;
- Psychological reasons;
There is a connection between some forms of asthma and obesity.
The main complaints are: asthma, chest pain.
Objective symptoms:
- raucous noisy breathing;
- cyanosis of the skin, mucous membranes (first of all look on the lips);
Methods of treatment:
- drug therapy;
- breathing exercises;
- physiotherapy;
It is clear that everyone has a different degree of asthma that is why the treatment is selected individually. But all medicines that are used to treat asthma divided into two groups:
- Medicines that are used to provide emergency assistance means for the relief of attacks of breathlessness;
- Long-acting drugs which can prevent the symptoms.
Almost everyone use an asthmatic inhaler because it is the most effective and safest way to deliver the drug exactly where it is needed (the bronchi). Thus the drug acts "aiming" and quickly. If we talk about inhaled hormone preparations then it is also a safe method.
Also often prescribed are nebulizers, this device converts liquid medication into an aerosol that allows it to easily penetrate even in bronchoconstriction.
More than 50% of patients have sensitization to house dust mites (mostly adults).
Atopic asthma caused by the living conditions of patients, usual old, damp, dark rooms, in houses with stove heating, usually in rural areas, with lots of pillows and featherbeds where there were good conditions for development and reproduction of mites. These same patients had asthma attacks at night and they disappear in a hospital or by changing the living place.
The prevalence of this disease in children around the world is about 10%. Half of them have first symptoms before two years of life and at school age suffer about 80%. Causes are: pollutants and air pollutants which are associated with modern building materials and dust.