Asthma

Asthma Asthma Definition/Symptoms: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways in which many cells (mast cells, eosinophils, and T lymphocytes) may play a role. In susceptible children, inflammation causes recurrent episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and cough, especially at night or in the early morning. The asthma episodes are associated with airflow limitation or obstruction that is reversible either spontaneously or with treatment. The inflammation also causes an increase of bronchial hyper- responsiveness to a variety of stimuli. There are four categories of asthma: mild intermittent, mild persistent, moderate persistent, and severe persistent. The mild intermittent category has the least number of symptoms; symptoms increase in frequency and/or intensity until the lst category of sever persistent asthma. These categories proved a stepwise approach to the pharmacological management, environmental control, and educational interventions needed for each category. (Maternal Child Nursing Care, Wong, p.1212-1215) Etiology: Studies of children with asthma indicate that allergy influences both the persistence and severity of the disease. In infants, a strong relationship exists between viral infections and asthma. Allergens play a less asthma, allergens, persistent, child, wong, therapy, symptoms, role, play, p1212-1215, nursing, mild, maternal, episodes, control, category, care, allergic, treatment, sensitivity, prevent, obstruction, management, intermittent, inflammation, increase, important, frequency, children, cells, causes, categories, airflow, wheezing, viral