Asthma which is our today's discussion is an inflammation of the lungs which affects both the adult and children. This disease can actually be genetic or being acquired from the environment.
One detrimental effect of this disease is it's ability to constrict the lungs, fill it with mucus and makes it difficult for you to breath.
According to WHO,
Asthma affected an estimated 262 million people in 2019 (1) and caused 455 000 deaths.
This is to say that asthma have claimed a lot of life in our community more especially in the rural area where people know little or nothing about it.
This disease is also common in children and have contributed to an increase rate of death in children between the age of 6 and above.
Asthma is caused by a lot of factors which includes, having a relation who in one way or the other has suffered from this disease is a higher chances of you coming down with this disease.
People who have some kinds of skin diseases or other related disease like eczema and rhinitis are prone to come down with this disease.
Some activities done in our early stage of life like intake of tobacco and other sources of air pollution has a higher chances of contributing to asthmatic condition and have known to be one of the leading cause of asthma.
An asthmatic patient is more likely to die if he or she is not taking the necessary medication and the appropriate inhaler.
The condition though lead to inflammation of the lungs but it can as well cause constriction of the airway making it difficult to breath.
I have come to realize that in some set of persons this condition may seems to be mild while it may be severe in others.
Reason is because the extent at which your lung is being affected may not actually be the same with mine.
In that case, those with mild symptoms may not really be passing through a lot unlike other individuals.
One thing about asthma is that it cannot be cured but it can be controlled by the help of inhaler.
The inhaler used can be grouped into two different group depending on the severity of the asthma.
Bronchodilators is one of them and this inhaler helps to open the air passage and relieve symptoms.
Another inhaler which is also important are the steroids which helps to reduce inflammation. This helps to reduce asthmatic attack or the sudden death caused by asthma.
In a case of emergency or in a children where inhaler may be difficult to coordinate breathing, aerosol inhaler is used to help the medicine to reach the lungs effectively.
pathophysiology
Asthma, which is an inflammation of the lungs causes the contractility of the lungs smooth muscle making it difficult to conduct air from the lungs out of the body.
These therefore results to wheezing, increase in the eosinophils, and thickening of the lamina reticularis that therefore makes it difficult to breath.
Though this disease called asthma has actually caused a lot of ravaging condition, the World health organization are trying their best to make sure that this condition is being controlled as stated below.
Asthma is included in the WHO Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of NCDs and the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
With the help of the stated effort by the WHO, the rate of this devastating effect of this disease we automatically drop drastically.
ways we can prevent asthma
The World Health Organization recommends decreasing risk factors such as tobacco smoke, air pollution, chemical irritants including perfume, and the number of lower respiratory infections
Abstaining from all of this could help in bringing down the rate at which this disease is causing ravage. Apart from that the use of aerosol or inhaler will also make a way in the reduction of the effect.
Conclusion
Asthma is a disease that have taken a lot of life's in this country including children.
This disease have actually caused a lot of death. But thanks to world health organization in adding much effort to see that the devastating rate of this disease comes to an end but providing support and listing out some things to avoid.
With the help of this, I believe asthmatic attack will come to an end.