BIOMED - Pathophysiology

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Overview

A form of chronic inflammatory disorder, Asthma is a respiratory condition wherein we have recurring episodes of the airways becoming inflamed, causing wheezing, shortness of breath, tight chests and coughing. This inflammation of tissue makes the area hypersensitive to stimuli, and increases responsiveness to these.

This involves three seperate processes that will be explored in this chapter: Bronchospasm, which affects the airway diameter, inflammation of the bronchial mucosa, which affects the airway lining , and increased bronchial secretions.

Pathophysiology

In an Asthma sufferer, their airways are in a persistent state of inflammation. This means that they have inflammatory cells present (lymphocytes, eosinophils, neutrophils) in the tissues. In a non-acute point in time, the airways are subacute, meaning the inflammation is lesser.

In this state, the person has a predisposition to bronchospasm, and their airways are hyper-reactive, meaning that when this person encounters an irritant (such as an allergen), it triggers an inflammatory response.

This response is achieved through mast cells in the bronchial mucosa releasing inflammatory mediators (eg. histamine), which result in bronchoconstriction of the smooth muscle tissue, as well as an increase in capillary permeability, resulting in excessive mucosal oedema.

By this point, we will be beginning to see declining SpO2 (oxygen) levels as we have impaired oxygen exchange, tachycardia & tachypnoea, and wheezing.

Here's my sexy drawing of the flow chart

Now of course it is more complicated than that, and there are more steps, and can be given more detail (also, a lot of these things interrelate, but that is the general gist.

Diagnosis:

A diagnosis of asthma is based on presenting signs and symptoms, which include a cough due to irritation, a wheeze, and breathlessness due to narrowed airways and thus reduced oxygenation.

Treatments & Interdisciplinary care:

- Anti-inflammatory medication administration.

- MDI - metered dose inhaler - for acute onset attacks

- Oxygen therapy

- Bronchodilators - (Beta-2 agonists)

- Corticosteroids and 2 non-steroid anti-inflammatory agents are used to reduce & supress airway inflammation, as well as asthmatic symptoms.

Relievers:

- Salbutamol
- Terbutaline

Corticosteroids: Block late response to inhaled allergens & reduce bronchial hypersensitivity.

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Also, have another sexy drawing from fucked if I know when I drew this. Probably last year