Chronic Respiratory Diseases
Health and Wellness » Respiratory Care in India »Chronic respiratory diseases are chronic diseases of the airways, along with problems in some other structures of the lung. Most of the common problems are asthma, respiratory allergies, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, occupational lung diseases and pulmonary hypertension. Respiratory diseases are nothing but the problems related to the respiratory system. These diseases can be pleural cavity, trachea, bronchial tubes, lung, upper respiratory tract and breathing muscles. Respiratory diseases can vary. They can be mild or self-limiting like common cold or very harmful diseases like pulmonary embolism or bacterial pneumonia. These are the common problems that cause illness resulting to death.
Symptoms of Chronic Respiratory Diseases
The symptoms related to this disease can be acute or chronic because diseased respiratory system has restricted number of clinical expressions. The symptoms can be breath shortness (dyspnea), cough, with or without phlegm production, chest tightness, continuous breathing noise which is also called wheezing, coughing up blood and chest pain. You will also find some uncommon symptoms of such disease which cannot be exactly termed as symptoms, but a disease process which has been found recently because of improved technology called routine chest X-ray. You can also find some early warning signs of chronic respiratory disease, which are usually ignored by the patients as they mistakenly attributed of thinking it as a sign of aging or some alternative disorders.
Causes of Chronic Respiratory Diseases
The common factor of the stress is mycoplasma gallisepticum and secondary organisms that cause this problem. The other risk factors related to these diseases are:
- Tobacco smoking
- Outdoor pollution
- Indoor air pollution
- Occupational risks and vulnerability
- Allergens
Other secondary factors causing this problem can be sinuses, mucus in trachea and thickness in air sacs, per hepatitis due to secondary bacteria or bronchi.
Diagnosing Chronic Respiratory Diseases
To separate mycoplasma can be difficult as isolating should be confirmed to be mycoplasma gallisepticum. There are many serotypes of mycoplasma present in the respiratory tract for which blood test can vary.
Disease Similar to Respiratory Diseases
- Coryza
- Infectious laryngotracheitis
- Fowl cholera
- Infectious bronchitis
Treatment
To treat this disease medically, you will find many antibiotics which are available. It was found out that large doses of such antibiotics can control the diseases along with minimizing the complications resulting due to secondary bacteria. However, it has been noticed that though these doses control the diseases, they does not control it completely.
Control: To control the disease, following things are included which can be:
- Controlling predisposing factors and maintaining hygiene
- Separating the affected groups
- Separating birds in older age groups from young birds
As per the observation made regarding chronic respiratory diseases, it has been noticed that most of the affected population is poor and unhygienic. To prevent these diseases, reducing the level of exposure of individuals to risk factors of this disease must be made. Factors like consumption of tobacco, frequent respiratory infections during childhood, poor nutrition and environmental pollution of air must be avoided.
Vaccination
Another preventive step can be vaccination which can prevent the infection of mycoplasma gallisepticum. Point of lay pullet�s suppliers can give vaccinated pullets.
Management
Infected and uninfected groups must be made and separated at least 50 to 100 m apart. The disease can be prevented by adopting the basic principles of isolation and buying the vaccinated pullets.
Statistics
The chronic respiratory diseases can collectively result in human suffering, economic loss and mortality. Example can be that around 163,000 Americans died because of cancer of the respiratory system in 2001. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is the fourth leading reason of death in the United States after heart diseases, cancer, and stroke and is killing nearly 113,000 Americans. The death rate has risen from 44.5 percent between 1979 and 1997, which was the highest among the top ten causes of death in the United States. Experts have observed that around 30 million Americans have COPD and only half of these have been diagnosed and treated. The overall economic impact of this disease in the country is around $31.9 billion annually.