Steemit Learning Challenge-S21W4; Asthma"

Am happy to join this week's lesson and also to put in my entry for the lesson learnt this week. A special thanks to our professor @ashkhan who have taken it upon himself to take us on this journey of absolute enlightenment. I found this week's course interesting and decided to give the task a short just like I've been doing since the begining of this season. I really do hope my teacher finds my entry interesting.

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

Asthma is a medical condition that causes difficulty or air movement in the airways of an individual, you can tell by how the individual breaths, you would notice wheezing and breathing difficulties which makes life a bit difficult for the victim. Asthma causes the walls of the airways including the bronchial tubes to become swollen and inflamed.

Asthma attack on it victims happens once in a while or whenever it's triggered, for some it is a recurring experience for them and it's always a very serious and terrible experience as you can see the victims gasping for breath and fighting for their lives because at the moment of that attack, the airways of the victim swells and the muscles tightens making it difficult for air to move freely along the airways...the lungs. Victims living with asthma would always experience

• Tightness in the chest,
• Wheezing
• Coughing,
• Short breath and breathlessness
• Increased mucus production etc.

Types of Asthma

• Childhood Asthma:This asthma is common among children and it's a chronic condition that could terminate their lives if adequate care is not taken, it could range from the age of 5 - 14 the causes of asthma respiratory infection are cold, air pollution and the triggers could include stress, excitement, exercise etc. This condition can span into adulthood if proper medical attention is not given to the child.

• Occupational Asthma: Occupational asthma happens as a result of exposure to irritants or allergens at their workplace. It's funny how most adults have to suffer asthma due to their work environment and it can be very severe most times. There are some that get so severe that a regular treatment would not be able to fix this kind.

• Seasonal asthma: This is an asthma that show up at certain times of the years and it a recurring type that it victims would have to face as a result of some trigger that comes with some of those times of the year such as cold air during winter, pollen during spring/summer. All of these things could trigger and attack and make it victims really uncomfortable.

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

Diagnosis

To carry out a proper diagnosis, a doctor will have to do some examination and due diligence in order to know how to manage the situation. The fact still remains that health experts cannot tell exactly what causes asthma, but they are quite sure that genetic and environmental factors play a significant role.

A doctor would take into account the medical history of the victims and his/her family and previous test result if any.
From his little findings, he can tell the type of asthma the victim is suffering from and his conclusion about the type of asthma largely depends on the information supplied by the victim which includes the symptoms and his allergen.

The doctor can proceed to run some test to manage the situation and that includes a physical test which focuses on their respiratory tract, their skin, chest to see if they will get the wheezing sounds that clearly show the symptoms of asthma. He can further check for running nose, growth in the nose, swollen nasal passage, the state of the skin if not infected by eczema or hives

The doctor proceeds to run spirometry test where victims would be asked to deeply take a breath and then forcefully breathe out the same into a tube that is connected to a machine called a spirometer which clearly shows the speed at which air is discharged from the lungs. Other tests include the challenge test which the doctor uses to know how triggers affect the breathing of the victim. Allergy test is also used by doctors to test for response.

Treatment

The goal of the diagnosis is to the end that the medical condition is managed to the minimum. The treatment is in two phases, the quick-relief medication and the long-term medication. The quick relief medication is used to deal with symptoms while the long term medication is used to reduce the rate at which the victim suffers attack.

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

• Pursed lip breathing exercise:This helps to improve the functionality of the lungs, it strengthens the chest muscles and fixes that issue of short breath. This is done by exhaling residual air in the lungs.