Asthma Is an Affliction That Essay

Instead, the rate of occurrence and its severity has largely continued and, strangely, medicine is apparently no closer to understanding what asthma truly is than it was two hundred years ago when it first began being diagnosed. Asthma researchers continue to be frustrated by the fact that the harder they tend to look for information regarding the causes of asthma, the more it seems that new and more complex questions arise. Every step forward seemed to bring with it more and more possible factors that contributed to the cause of asthma and contributed to its aggravation. Those suffering from the effects of asthma found themselves not knowing where or who to turn to regarding diagnosis and, more importantly, treatment.

The frustrations incurred by the medical and scientific community in regard to asthma have caused many experts to begin to question whether a new direction might be necessary. As no one has been able to clearly distinguish what asthma truly is or how it is caused, there is a growing group of professionals in the field who are suggesting that what has been identified as asthma may instead be more properly merely a symptom of other clinical diseases.

The ambiguity surrounding asthma makes it difficult to characterize it as a disease. Concentrated efforts have been made by several different disciplines to develop a unified method of attacking it and eradicating it as a medical and social problem but the efforts have met with little success. As a disease it remains as ambiguous as it ever was and its treatment protocols remain as unsuccessful as they ever were as well.

What has complicated the asthma issue even further is society's increased interest in pollution as a serious problem (Nadeau, 2010).There is overwhelming evidence that pollution aggravates what physicians have been treating as asthma but its effects have also raised additional questions as to what asthma truly is. The studies have indicated that there is no clear pattern in how asthmatic patients react to different pollutants which has caused more questions to be raised as to asthma's causes, however, there is no denying that pollutions' effects are considerable with all individuals afflicted with asthmatic symptoms.

The future of asthma both as a diagnosis and treatment remains ambiguous. Instead of decreasing as an ailment its reported numbers are increasing and every indication is that there is no reason to expect this increase to cease any time in the near future. Lack of a unified approach to treatment, poorly defined diagnostic standards, and environmental conditions all contribute to the rising numbers.

Research and clinical trials continue in the area of asthma and there are some promising studies but asthma remains a serious medical and social problem. Despite the thousands of hours spent in attempts to understand the condition broadly identified as asthma and the millions of dollars spent on research and studies, asthma is as serious a problem as it ever was.

References

Aggarwal, B.B.(Editor)(2011). Inflammation, Lifestyle and Chronic Diseases: The Slient LInk. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Hall, I.P. (1997). The Future of Asthma. British Medical Journal, 45-49.

Jackson, M. (2009). Asthma: The Biography. New York: Oxford University Press.

Nadeau, K. (2010). Ambient air pollution impairs regulatory T-cell function in asthma. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology .

Park, A. (2009, July 22). Parental Stress increases kids….....