Respiratory tract disorders and diseases Articles

Although you cannot make the diagnosis of asthma on your own, you can recognize some of the key signs and symptoms, which can help you decide to visit your doctor for a more comprehensive examination.

Adult-onset asthma has very different features than asthma occurring during childhood. The cause is unclear, but it seems to be related to smoking, air pollution, obesity, exposure to chemicals, and many other risk factors.

Asthma is a complex chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways which affects people of all ages. Still, its onset is most common during childhood. There are some differences in asthma diagnosis between children and adults.

Signs and symptoms of bronchial asthma are not much different than in many other pulmonary diseases, and therefore, the diagnosis of asthma can sometimes be challenging.

Being the most prevalent chronic disease in children, and a very common condition in adults, asthma deserves great attention of researchers and healthcare providers. Making the right diagnosis is crucial for timely and proper treatment of asthma.

Asthma is a great burden of modern society. Although in some countries its prevalence dropped during the past decade, the data are still inconsistent. Both genetic and environmental risk factors play important roles in asthma development.

There are many drugs that should be avoided in asthma patients, and some of them are even marked as contraindicated because they can cause asthma attacks or have negative interactions with asthma medications.

People with asthma often experience worsening or improvement of their symptoms depending on the weather changes. There are evidences that even thunderstorms affect the occurrence of asthma attacks.

Patients with asthma know that bacterial and viral infections of the respiratory tract always worsen their asthma symptoms to some extent. Along with that, infections can induce asthma, both in children and in adults.

There is a firm scientific evidence that smoking and second-hand smoke in patients with asthma can lead to worsening of the symptoms and increased mortality. Asthma usually starts during childhood, but there is also the late-onset asthma.