“When you are having an asthma attack, you do not have any breath, and when you do not have any breath, it is hard to speak. You are limited by the amount of air you can spend from your lungs.” (Etgar Keret). Asthma is a long-term ambience affecting children and adults. Asthma is among the highly endemic diseases affecting about 25.7 million people in the United States, and it is a cause of almost half a million annual hospitalizations, killing nine people every day (Azar et al., 2020), and the options for managing asthma are providing long-term control over the disease, and in case of an asthma attack, one can achieve quick relief. The stepwise approach is the most effective and accepted approach for treating and managing asthma. This essay explores the long-term control and quick relief treatment options for asthma patients, the stepwise approach to asthma treatment and management, and how stepwise management assists healthcare providers and patients in gaining and maintaining disease control.
Treatment options for asthma patients turn on the type of disease or the activity stimulating the attack, asthma severity, and the patient’s age. The primary and most common treatment options for patients with asthma are long-term control and quick-relief treatments. A patient may need daily medication to achieve a long-term effect in case they are experiencing asthma symptoms for more than a week (Reddel et al., 2022). The long-term controllers are anti-inflammatory medicines and bronchodilators, and they are taken concomitantly to achieve the desired effect, whereas some medications, such as inhaled corticosteroids such as budesonide, flunisolide, and mometasone, are more effective in preventing asthma symptoms than relieving the attack. Despite specific side effects such as stunted growth in children, corticosteroids have an accepted efficiency in controlling asthma. Cromolyn sodium is also a popular medication for asthma, stopping swelling in airways which develops as a reaction contacting with triggers (Mandlik & Mandlik, 2022). To reduce the negative effect of leukotrienes, montelukast, zafirlukast, and zileutone are used as pills. Bronchodilators are taken together with anti-inflammatory medicines to help relax the muscles around the airways. The quick-relief medications provide instant relief for symptoms that flare up. Patients can use inhaled short-acting beta2 agonists, including albuterol and levalbuterol, which have a loosening effect on tight muscles around the airways, releasing the airflow. Such medications can be essential for asthma treatment, hence reducing asthma cases globally.
A stepwise approach to treating and managing asthma is one of the most used alternatives for dealing with this chronic disorder, and according to the approach, the recommended decisions are based on a patient’s age and divided into three groups, which are children aged 0-4, children aged 5-12 years, and children above 12 years and adults. Every venture involves treatment and management options for the disease’s six steps: intermittent, mild persistent, moderate persistent, and severe persistent (Reddel et al., 2022). The importance of the stepwise approach is that it allows altering medication use and treatment strategy, on the whole, depending on the patient’s condition changing under the impact of diverse factors such as environment season and emotional condition. This approach is essential for treating and managing asthma, minimizing the death rate and affecting people.
Stepwise asthma management plays a vital role in helping healthcare providers and patients gain and maintain asthma control. The stepwise approach is involved in asthma guidelines and recommendations on how to be used by physicians. It allows asthma control maintenance and provides the necessary treatments according to the patient’s requirements (Martignon et al., 2019). It can be achieved because of an opportunity to select a step up or down in case patient monitoring indicates that the condition improves or worsens. One of the essential aspects involved in the steps of the approach is the change of medication doses.
In summary, asthma is a chronic condition that, in spite of active research in the field, cannot be prevented. Hence, there is a requirement for approaches allowing the management and control of the disease. A stepwi
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