Asthma is considered the most common cause of chronic disease that affects children and is the number one cause of children missing school. This disease has significantly increased in incidence in the last twenty years resulting in increased hospitalization stays as well as an increase in mortality rates. Factors that have contributed to this rise in incidents includes overcrowding, indoor pollution, allergens, increases in viral infections, cockroach allergies and could also be associated with a decline in mothers breastfeeding.
It is estimated that ten percent of children suffer from asthma and out of those ten percent, five to ten percent of them will be affected with a severe type of asthma known as Status Asthmaticus (SA). This serious form of asthma is characterized by sudden or long lasting asthma attacks that do not respond to normal bronchodilators. When a SA attack occurs, it is a medical emergency requiring immediate treatment. During a SA attack, blood gases become affected causing too much carbon dioxide and too little oxygen in the blood. Without proper and immediate action, coma and/or death can result.
SA attacks can have a gradual onset that can take an extended period of time to develop, which usually occurs when adequate treatment has been prolonged. Symptoms can go on for days or weeks as the individual's condition worsens. There may be moments that symptoms subside although they will return until eventually; symptoms cannot be eliminated with usual medications. SA attacks can also be sudden causing wheezing, coughing, bronchospasms and breathlessness. These types of attacks usually occur due to being exposed to large amounts of allergens such as dust, pollen or food.
When a child is being treated in an emergency room for SA, the doctors will provide the child with oxygen, medications to help open airways, steroids that will be given intravenously or orally and anti-cholinergic medications that are inhaled. They will also perform pulmonary function tests for proper diagnosis. Other medications that may be used include magnesium sulfate IV, beta-agonists and leukotriene modifiers. Patients may be admitted to the pediatric critical care unit until stabilized where they will be cared for by a Sioux Falls pediatric critical care specialist. These physicians are experts in treating children with this illness and can provide the proper treatments to help stabilize the child. While in the pediatric critical care unit, the physician will look for improvements in the symptoms of this illness that include rapid respiratory rate and pulse, low oxygen levels in blood, breathlessness while resting, agitation, decreased breathing capacity and if the patient is able to talk or speak in full sentences. Specialists will normally only choose to put a child on a ventilator when medication treatments do not provide effective results.
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