Despite the fact that medicine has advanced rapidly and developed many powerful antibacterial drugs, pneumonia is still one of the most common and deadly diseases, which ranks third in the frequency of deaths after strokes and cancer. Unfortunately, it is not possible to reduce the incidence.
Pneumonia is an inflammatory process of infectious origin that negatively affects the lower respiratory tract with the indispensable involvement of lung matter.
Varieties of pneumonia:
- Community-acquired pneumonia is perhaps the most common type of disease.
- Hospital pneumonia. This form of the disease manifests itself in a person who stays in a hospital for a long time, provided that during the hospitalization the patient did not have a single symptom indicating the presence of this ailment.
- Aspiration pneumonia is a form of disease that manifests itself as a result of pathogenic bacteria entering the body through food, water or any foreign objects.
- Atypical pneumonia is,perhaps the most severe form of the disease, since it is caused by atypical microflora (for example: chlamydia, mycoplasmas, etc.).
Causes of pneumonia
It is worth considering that pneumonia is a disease of bacterial origin.
The main causative agents of the disease are: staphylococcus aureus, pneumococcus and Haemophilus influenzae. In rare situations, Klebsiella, E. coli can become an impetus for the disease, but this is if the patient has serious diseases in parallel.
Factors that greatly increase the likelihood of getting pneumonia:
- Injury to internal organs, especially kidneys, heart and lungs.
- Decreased level of the body's protective barrier.
- Presence of cancer.
- Pre-ventilation.
- Defeat of the central nervous system.
- Age over 60.
- The effect of general anesthesia on the body.
Symptoms of pneumonia
How does pneumonia manifest itself in adults? The main manifestations of pneumonia are:
- Rapidly rising and holding heat to 39 degrees.
- Profuse cough with large amounts of sputum.
- Shortness of breath at rest or with little exertion.
- Pain or discomfort in the chest.
In most cases, patients report a significant decrease inperformance, weakness, fatigue, profuse sweating, sleep problems and lack of appetite. In elderly patients, general intoxication of the body can also be observed. It is worth noting that there is a category of people who have pneumonia without symptoms or with mild symptoms - dry cough, recurrent headaches and weakness.
How does pneumonia manifest itself in children? Most often, pneumonia in children develops extremely rapidly, and complications after acute respiratory infections become its cause. The most common age is from six months to 6 years. The vast majority of pneumonia in children is provoked by pneumococcus. If you begin to suspect that your child is ill, you should immediately seek medical advice. Treatment is usually carried out in a hospital. Pneumonia without symptoms does not actually occur in children.
This disease is rapidly progressing, so negligence and improper treatment will not be tolerated. Inaction can be fatal!
Complete blood test for pneumonia: donation rules
In order to avoid significant errors in the study of your general tests, you should thoroughly prepare for their delivery and follow all the rules listed below:
- Blood donation should be carried out strictly on an empty stomach and in the morning. You can only drink purified water without gases.
- Evening meal must be finished at least 8 hours before the estimated pick-up timeblood.
- A couple of days before the test, you should refrain from using any drugs, as they can significantly change the composition of the blood.
- For a day, you must refrain from fatty foods, alcohol and avoid physical exertion.
What tests should be done for pneumonia
Pneumonia is an extremely deadly disease that needs timely detection and appropriate research. Diagnostics should include the following components:
- Biochemical composition of blood.
- Complete urinalysis.
- General sputum analysis.
- Fluorography.
With pneumonia, a blood test is the most essential component of diagnosis. Rarely, but there are cases when the results of blood tests are normal, but inflammatory processes will still appear. This indicates that the patient's immune system has weakened so much that it is unable to influence the ongoing disease.
Changes in test scores due to disease exposure
In case of pneumonia, a blood test in an adult should show a fairly high level of leukocytes, but this is provided that the immune system is still able to resist the disease. The ESR indicator should reach critical levels. If intoxication occurs in the body for a long time, anemia may develop. The normal course of pneumonia is not capable ofappear in the analyses. Only when a crisis is approaching can the eosinophil count rise rapidly.
If a blood test does not show leukocytosis with pneumonia, then this is a bad bell for adults.
A blood test for pneumonia in a child:
- The erythrocyte count is normal or slightly reduced. The advanced form of the disease, on the contrary, provokes a rapid increase in the number of red blood cells in the body.
- When a child has pneumonia, a blood test in a child indicates an increased number of leukocytes, which indicates the presence of a bacterial disease.
- The number of various forms of stab neutrophils is rapidly increasing.
- A blood test for pneumonia in a child shows that the disease leads to a rapid decrease in the level of lymphocytes.
- ESR is several times higher than the required norm.
Pneumonia: diagnosis and treatment
A course of treatment for a mild form of pneumonia can be prescribed by doctors with a wide profile: general practitioners, pediatricians, family doctors. As for the severe form of the disease, it requires hospitalization in a specialized department - pulmonology.
The basis of the treatment of pneumonia is antibacterial drugs (antibiotics). The drug, dosage and duration of administration must be determined by the doctor without fail, depending on many factors: the age of the patient, the characteristics of the course of the disease and the presence of additional diseases. In most cases, treatment iscomplex, with the use of several antibacterial drugs.
The average duration of treatment is 10 days.
Prevention of pneumonia
It is impossible to completely exclude the possibility of a disease, but you can make every effort to protect yourself and your loved ones. First of all, you need to try to live in accordance with a he althy lifestyle: adhere to proper nutrition, temper, exercise, spend a lot of time outdoors, avoid stressful situations and adhere to all the rules of personal hygiene. It is necessary to eat plant foods or dietary supplements so that the immune system does not malfunction. Bedridden patients are advised to regularly undergo massage courses and do specially designed breathing and therapeutic exercises, and it may also be advisable to prescribe antiplatelet agents (for example, Trental, Heparin, etc.).
Be extremely scrupulous and attentive to the state of he alth, because timely diagnosis and treatment of ailments can significantly increase a person's life expectancy!
