It should strongly be noted that early symptoms or lack thereof do not always reflect the ultimate severity of an attack. In fact, some studies suggest that people at high risk for fatal or near-fatal asthma attacks are those with poor awareness of their own reduced ability to breathe and who are therefore slow in seeking help. Those at highest risk for this effect tend to be older, female, and have had the disease for a longer period of time.Monitoring peak flow rates is an important management component since it provides a more accurate assessment of lung function than symptoms alone.
Degree of Severity
The severity of asthma is graded using the following categories: mild intermittent and mild, moderate, and severe persistent. A patient in any of these categories, even mild intermittent, can still experience a severe and even life-threatening attack. In fact, according to one report, 30% of asthma deaths occur in patients with mild asthma.
Long-Term Outlook
Asthma is usually chronic, although it occasionally goes into long periods of remission. Long-term outlook generally depends on severity:
- In mild-to-moderate cases, asthma can improve over time, and many adults even become symptom free.
- Even in some severe cases, adults may experience improvement depending on the degree of obstruction in the lungs and the timeliness and effectiveness of treatment.
- In about 10% of severe persistent cases, changes in the structure of the walls of the airways lead to progressive and irreversible problems in lung function, even in aggressively treated patients.
Lung function declines faster than average in people with asthma, particularly in those who smoke and in those with excessive mucus production (an indicator of poor treatment control). Overall, one study reported that 72% of men and 86% of women with asthma had symptoms 15 years after an initial diagnosis. Only 19% of these people, however, were still seeing a doctor, and only 32% used any maintenance medication.
Patients who develop occupational asthma often experience asthmatic symptoms for years, even after avoiding the harmful triggers. Improvement does occur over time in most people who leave such jobs.
Previous Section
