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Asthma

from Medical topics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2014

By
A.A. Kaptein  and
K.F. Rabe
Edited by
Susan Ayers ,
Andrew Baum ,
Chris McManus ,
Stanton Newman ,
Kenneth Wallston ,
John Weinman  and
Robert West
A.A. Kaptein
Affiliation:
Leiden University Medical Centre
K.F. Rabe
Affiliation:
Leiden University Medical Centre
Susan Ayers
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Andrew Baum
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Chris McManus
Affiliation:
St Mary's Hospital Medical School
Stanton Newman
Affiliation:
University College and Middlesex School of Medicine
Kenneth Wallston
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
John Weinman
Affiliation:
United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's
Robert West
Affiliation:
St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London
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Summary

The English word ‘asthma’ comes from the Greek ‘asthma’, which means ‘panting with sound, wheezing’. Patients who suffer an asthmatic episode are short of breath, wheeze, cough and experience chest tightness. Given the still incomplete understanding of the mechanisms involved in asthma, ‘defining asthma is like defining love – we all know what it is, but who would trust anybody else's definition?’ (Gross, 1980, p. 203). Recent guidelines give the following definition of asthma: ‘… a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways … the chronic inflammation causes an associated increase in airway hyperresponsiveness that leads to recurrent episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness and coughing. These episodes are usually associated with widespread but variable airflow obstruction that is often reversible either spontaneously or with treatment’ (GINA, 2001, p. 2; www.ginasthma.com). The reversibility of the airflow obstruction, ‘spontaneously or with treatment’, is the hallmark of asthma, distinguishing it from the other two major chronic respiratory disorders, chronic bronchitis and emphysema (COPD – chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) which are largely irreversible (see ‘Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease’).

Asthma is a highly prevalent disorder. Estimates range between virtually 0% to some 60%, illustrating the wide variations in the genetic predisposition for developing asthma in different parts of the world population, and in the environmental factors eliciting asthmatic responses. In Inuit populations in North Canada the asthma prevalence is virtually zero; on the island of Tristan da Cunha it is about 57% (Zamel et al., 1996).

Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine , pp. 559 - 562
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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