"Steemit Learning Challenge-S21W4; Asthma"

It is another week with another amazing topic. I've seen and be with many people having asthmatic attack and some led to untimely death because of mismanagement . Thanks so much @ashkhan for giving us a broad on this topic which is highly beneficial to me and my family members.

What's Asthma? Write in your own words after getting knowledge from the lesson post.

Asthma is a major non communicable disease which affect both children and adults, and is the most common chronic disease among children and women.

In my own view Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease often characterised by airways obstruction, chest tightness, cough, wheezing making it harder or difficulty for an individual to breathe freely. The worse about this chronic inflammatory lung disease is that it can be life threatening if not treated properly and in time.

Asthma condition has two components, the first component occurs when there is activation of immune cells become sensitive to allergens that the lungs of a person can easily be effected with allergens. The second component is when the inflammation of lungs that swells the airways and cells lining excrete excess mucus that impair breathing. In this situation bronchospasm always set in which is the airway constriction.

Types of Asthma

The most common type is called Conventional Asthma: it is also known as the traditional type of asthma that is triggered by allergens like pollen, pet dander and dust mites. Conventional Asthma has three types which is the Allergic, non-allergic and mixed allergic.

Occupational Asthma ; Occupational asthma is often triggered by irritants in the workplace such as gases, biological agents, fumes, metals, dust and industrial
chemicals.

For example an individual who is working in bakery might be expose to flour dust and also those one working in a perfume industries which are also expose to chemicals.

Exercise induced Asthma or Exercise-Induced Bronchoconstriction (EIB):
As the name implies, this type of Asthma usually occurs when an individual carry out physical activity during or after an exercise due to the narrowing of airways which doesn't allow air to flow freely. The major thing that triggers this type of asthma is dry or cold air, respiratory infection and air pollution.

We have three major types of asthma but there are other once due to causes and severity of the condition. They include Severe Asthma,Adult-Onset Asthma, Childhood Asthma, Cough-Variant Asthma, Aspirin-Exacerbated Respiratory Disease (AERD), and Nocturnal Asthma which is severe at night.

Sign and symptoms of Asthma

An asthmatic patients always present his or her self with the following sign and symptom. The first one is cough with or without sputum production, unexplained sweating, reoccurring respiratory infection, wheezing( high-pitched sounds while breathing out), episodes of shortness of breath(dyspnea), fatigue, and chest pain with tightness.

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Factor that can trigger Asthma

There are many factors that can triggers Asthma. The most common is Allergens example is cockroach dropping, pollen and lot more.

Infection can also trigger Asthma if such individual is expose to cold, flu and pneumonia. So there is always an attack.

Some Emotion can trigger Asthma such as laughing, crying, stress and anxiety.

Respiratory irritant is another factor which triggers asthma. Cigarette smoking, pesticides, strong chemical and wood smoke.

Vigorous exercise, Obesity, premature birth, Genetic and family history can also contribute to this condition.

Asthma condition vary from one individual to another depending on the severity, cause and type of asthma.

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How would you diagnose a asthma? Any clinical investigation or assessment tests?

When diagnosing, it is important for a doctor to carry out combination of clinical evaluation, physical examination, Diagnostic tests and other special test to rule out this condition.

Medical history: The doctor will asses the patient symptoms, ask him or her about allergies and previous respiratory problems.
People who suffer from asthma most often have relatives with respiratory diseases since asthma is a hereditary disease which is advisable to ask questions about family history.

During physical examination the doctor need to check for the lungs sounds, assess the patient respiratory rate, listen to the patient wheezing sounds and low or high -pitched sounds. He will also assess the patient's symptoms severally and frequency.

The Spirometry test is a test use to evaluate the amount of air that can be inhaled and exhaled by a patient and can also measure how quickly it can be done. This measure include Forced Expiratory volume, Forced vital capacity and the ratio of FEV/ FVC.

Lung function test:This test goes a long way to know how good the person with asthma can breath in and out.

Methacholine Challenge Test: This test help to the doctor to assess patients airways responsiveness.

Sputum analysis: This helps to show the degree of inflammation of the airway through cellular markers.

We have various tests that helps a patient case based on the severity of the asthma issue and also to confirm asthma the type that is disturbing the patient. They include peak Explanatory flow, pulmonary function tests, Blood test, Bronchodilator Reversibility Test, Allergy Testing, Chest X-ray, Exercise or Cold-Air Challenge Test, CT Scan and Exhaled Nitric Oxide Test (FeNO).

Try to practice at least 3 exercises that you have learned from the lesson. Share images, gifs or videos while practising.

Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercise

To perform this exercise, she sat on a chair with my one hand on my belly and the other on my chest. She took a deep breath in and pushed my belly and my hand outward. She try to keep movement of my chest at minimum and then concentrated on the deep breathing.

Pursed lip breathing exercise

This very exercise helps the asthmatic patients to address shortness of breath. She began with an upright position. She relaxed her neck and shoulder and then inhale slowly through the nose with my mouth closed for a count of two seconds and purses her lip as if am trying to whistle, she did it slowly without forcing it and exhale for the count of four. She continued to inhale for the count of two and exhale in the count of four through the purses lip. She repeated the cycle till the breath returns to normal.

Upper chest stretch.

In performing upper chest stretch, she stretched out her both hands behind my back and chest out and the pushed her head backward to level the pelvic. The entire body bones where in complete movement during this time. She continued it for about some minutes.
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Share your review after performing these exercises either on yourself, healthy individual or patient.

In this week exercise, I used my niece who was expose to flu in their school some days back but still experiencing some breathing problems. ln a situation like this, the first thing that I always do that helps is saturated steam( hot water at boiling point). She inhale and exhale for about 10 to 15 minutes.. After we continue with the three set of exercise above and lung muscle was strengthened.