Acute asthma
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways that is associated with airway hyperresponsiveness and leads to recurrent episodes of dyspnea, wheezing, chest tightness and coughing. Acute asthma is a life-threatening condition requiring hospitalization. It responds badly to basic treatment. Because of the constantly increasing number of patients with asthma, it is important to know, how to deal with this difficult condition.¨
Review
Educational algorithm "Acute asthma" is a very nice interactive tutorial on how to proceed in case of prolonged severe asthma attack. The algorithm clearly performs key steps in therapeutic process while highlighting the most serious mistakes that can be made by physician and how to avoid them. Each step is followed by multimedia and appropriate therapeutic responses which clarifies whole procedure and make it more educational. Although pharmacologically refractory asthma attacks during the extended prophylactic therapy of inhalation corticosteroid (ICS) have been relatively rare clinical situations, it is necessary to know that kind of process.
Sources
SOUČEK, Miroslav, Jindřich ŠPINAR a Jiří VORLÍČEK. Vnitřní lékařství. Praha: Grada, 2011. ISBN 978-80-247-2110-1.
BÁRTŮ, Václava. Urgentní stavy v pneumologii. Postgraduální medicína. 2009, 11(2), 138-142. ISSN 1212-4184.
