DEALING WITH ASTHMA IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Asthma is a chronic lung disease
characterized by recurrent breathing problems and symptoms such as
breathlessness, wheezing, chest tightness and coughing. The symptoms vary over
time and also differ in severity from one individual to another. When it is not
effectively treated, asthma often leads to hospitalization, missed work and
school, limitation of physical activity, sleepless nights and in some cases death.
This disease(asthma) was unknown 50
years ago in developing countries because many languages still do not have the
words such as “wheeze” or “asthma” in their lexicon. This has added to many
challenges facing the diagnosis and management of asthma. Poor healthcare
facilities and shortage of healthcare personnel are problems compounded by the
urban concentration of these facilities where they exist. This makes the rural
and under-resourced communities bear a heavy burden of the mortality and
morbidity of the disease.
There are structural barriers to
reducing the burden of asthma in developing countries. This includes poverty
and inadequate resources, the low priority given to asthma as a public health
problem, poor healthcare infrastructure, lack of patient education, difficulties
in implementing guidelines developed in weather countries, tobacco, pollution,
occupational exposure, poor patient compliance etc. It is about 7.7 million
people that have asthma in North Africa, while 13.7 million have it in West
Africa.
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory
disease of the airways characterized by bronchial hyper –responsiveness and
reversible airways obstruction. Through some studies and research, asthma is
now considered a disease of gene-environment interaction with an intricate
immunobiology.
The following are asthma triggers:
1. Exercise
2. Cigarette
smoke
3. Changes
in air temperature
4. Strong
smells
5. Laughing
6. Allergens
7. Parasites
8. Infections
9. Chemicals
etc.
To deal with asthma, the therapy
should focus on lung function parameter. Anti inflammatory therapy in the form
of inhaled corticosteroids is one of the interventions.
There should be avoidance of those
things that trigger them, use of Jobelyn capsules can greatly help too. Using
of inhaler devices prescribed according to the patients’ condition by their
doctors.
Special consideration should be
given to a pregnant person who is asthmatic as well as elderly patients. Other
therapy are oxygen, B-stimulants, mechanical ventilation.
Also there are different inhalation
devices and techniques in asthma treatment, they are:-
aerosol delivery, pressurized
metered dose inahaler(pMDIs), spacers(Non-valved and valved holding chambers),
nebulizers etc.
Finally, there should be Patient
Training and Education so that there would be proper adherence to avoid hospitalization.
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