If you are an older adult with recurring episodes of cough, wheezing, chest tightness, or difficulty breathing, you may have asthma. Are you surprised? There is a common misconception among health-care providers and the general public that older people are not at risk for asthma. Most people figure that it is a disease that only affects children or young adults. Actually, statistics reveal that six to 10 percent of older adults may suffer from asthma. It is a cause for serious concern in the elderly, because patterns of the disease are usually more severe and complete symptom remission is rare. Asthma is a disease of the lung’s airways. With asthma, the …
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A recent study concludes that viral infections may cause asthma attacks in a significant proportion of asthma patients. Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine studied 122 asthmatics treated for acute symptoms of asthma at hospital emergency departments and 29 asthmatic adults treated at a pulmonary clinic to collect data. The study found that 55% of asthma attacks treated at emergency department were linked to respiratory tract viral infections, while 44% of attacks in asthmatic pulmonary clinic patients were associated with similar infections. Authors say the findings suggest that more effort should be placed on preventing respiratory tract viral infections among asthma patients.
[ Continue Reading... ]Questions and Answers: 1. How can a person be sure that their asthma symptoms are caused by exposure to something at work? Are there specific tests? There are three types of work-related asthma. The first type is related to an allergy to something in the workplace. In that case, patients note that the asthma clears up whenever they’re not at work or they’re on vacation. The second type is where there is pre-existing asthma; irritants at the work site will constantly aggravate the existing asthma, so that they always have a lot of minor attacks at work because there may be several things that bother them. The third type is irritant-induced …
[ Continue Reading... ]A myriad of factors are implicated in causing asthma in the workplace: the nature of the job being done, the location of the work site, the degree of exposure to irritants, and what kind of materials — vapours, fumes, as well as dusts — are being inhaled, among others. Various ways of defining asthma caused by work site conditions have been proposed but a newer classification system suggests two primary types of occupational asthma, asthma with latency and asthma without latency. Asthma with latency is precipitated by prolonged exposure (the latency period) to a substance present on the work site, which eventually causes allergic sensitization. This sensitization process eventually changes the …
[ Continue Reading... ]Questions and Answers: 1. What causes a sensitivity to a particular allergen or irritant? There is a genetic predisposition in some individuals to become immunologically sensitized to different aeroallergens, like cat or house dust mite. The exact mechanism responsible for this genetic predisposition is unknown. It may have to do with the genetic predisposition to have inflammation of the lungs to begin with, which would make it easier for people to become sensitized and induce an immune response against things that they inhale. But this is an active area of research: while we know that the genetic predisposition is there and that it has a strong influence, we don’t know how …
[ Continue Reading... ]These days, asthma and its causes are fairly well understood. Inflamed lungs, reversible airway obstruction, and hyperresponsiveness of airways are all typical symptoms of asthma. These can be triggered by a growing list of risk factors, especially from air pollutants and airborne allergens. Even so, in spite of a better grasp of the disease and improved therapy, asthma mortality is climbing. Researchers do not yet have clear answers to some important questions, including why death rates have been going up for the last 10 years, and why the incidence is higher among blacks than whites. The environment generates countless allergens and irritants, but sorting out which ones have an impact on …
[ Continue Reading... ]Questions and Answers: 1. Do you know why mortality rates for elderly asthma patients have been rising more rapidly than for younger patients? No one really knows, but there are several possibilities. When elderly people developed asthma, it used to be diagnosed as emphysema or bronchitis, but now we know that asthma can occur at any age. So it may not be a real increase in incidence, but simply better recognition. Second, as the population has aged in the last several decades, many diseases occur more commonly than they did years ago. We didn’t use to see many 80-year-olds with asthma because there weren’t many 80-year-olds around. When an elderly asthmatic …
[ Continue Reading... ]Improved knowledge of how asthma operates as an inflammatory disease has led to a major change in the way medications are used to relieve bronchospasm and remove mucous. Doctors are moving away from an emphasis on relatively short-acting agents to using long-term strategies with inhaled corticosteroids to prevent and eradicate airway inflammation. Elderly asthmatic patients are prone to the same factors that worsen asthma in younger sufferers: viral respiratory infections, paint and household cleaning product fumes, cold air, exposure to smoke, etc. The pharmacological management of asthma does not differ very much in the elderly from what is used at any age, except in three ways: the elderly are likely to …
[ Continue Reading... ]Questions and Answers 1. Are oral corticosteroids not effective enough in treating asthma? The problem is not the effectiveness of corticosteroids. Patients respond to corticosteroids, but because of the toxic effects of the drug, we’re always looking for what we call a corticosteroid-sparing effect. We want to reduce the use of steroids through alternative medication, but it’s not a question of one drug being better than the other. 2. Are you concerned about dependency on corticosteroids, or about other side effects? Corticosteroids are not like cocaine, which creates a physical dependency. We’re much more concerned about toxicity, particularly in children. Steroids stunt growth, can cause cataracts, high blood pressure, hair all …
[ Continue Reading... ]Glossary: Immune globulin E (IgE): An antibody that generally makes up only 0.01% or less of the total immune globulin armoury in human blood, but which frequently appears at higher concentrations in allergic people. This antibody is implicated in reactions such as ragweed and hay fever allergies, most food and contact allergies, and allergy-related asthma. Immune globulin G (IgG): Also known as gamma globulin, this is the most common of the immune globulins, accounting for approximately 80% of all those present in human blood. It is frequently given by injection to boost the immune system prior to possible exposure to infectious diseases (ie. before a visit to the tropics). Degranulation: The …
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