Case Study..

Hi...

For my universtiy course we have been given a case study of an elderly women, living alone in her own home.
She has asthma, and previously had pneumonia, she also used to smoke. She now finds that she has shortness of breathe and can't walk as far as she could. She also finds the smell of paint discomforting.

Does anyone have any ideas of what treatment could be available for her and also why she has these symptoms?

Any help would be appreciated...thank you

Lucy =)

Hi lucy_s

Now you may find my response not very helpful but I think it needs to be said. It is one thing to help a student with a more complex case to help them get some ideas of where they need to look.

However the assignment you have been given is really very straight forward - really basic textbook stuff. Have you even looked at your textbook?:

* Asthma is one of the most common conditions you can treat - it is absolute bread and butter in CP physiotherapy. There are whole chapters on the physiotherapy of asthma in textbooks for your reading.
* Smoking is one of the main risk factors for the three most common respiratory conditions - asthma, COPD and lung cancer - as well as many other diseases that crop up in the life of a physio. Surely you can find out something about risk factors for smoking and the pathophysiology involved.
* Shortness of breath is one absolute cardinal symptom of respiratory disease as well ad cardiac disease. It is all in the textbooks there for you to read.
* If she has had pneumonia this is an acute episode of one of the most common lung infections - al basic textbook stuff.

The treatment is all readily documented in the texts. More importantly however is for you to think through what would be involved in an assessment of this patient and how you might arrive at treatment based on these and other findings. your educator is probably wanting to know how you would clinically reason through the assessment of the patient to get to the treatment

the paint smell thing is a bit less common so that is something you may need help with.

Others on this site might be more sympathetic. Personally I like to help students work through problems but when there is no evidence that you have done any research yourself into what is a very rudimentary problem - I think you are being lazy. Who is supposed to be earning the degree here?

Tell you what - make an attempt to answer the assignment with some detailed study of your own and I or others would be more than happy to help you out if you want some feedback on your writing or have some questions that you can't find answers

If "discomforting" means that the old lady finds herself becoming breathless, it could be that the smell of paint induces inflamation and bronchial hyperreactivity & thus could be a 'trigger' for her asthma.

You could start your treatment by educating her on self management of the condition, identification of precipitating factors, how to avoid them , the warning signs of an exacerbation and when & where to seek help etc.

A good book is Physiotherapy in Respiratory Care by Alexander Hough.

And of course tell her to stop sniffing paint tins! ;)

Work through the processes. Look at the restrictive processes involved - how to remedy those. Look at the education both preventative (from the asthma meds side of things) and when symptoms arise. Perhaps look at Buteyko stuff ( Buteyko method )for education as well? maybe not so useful though if an allergen is causing the asthma.

As gcoe said this is really text book, simple stuff. Break it into the parts and see what physio and common sense could do to assist in a preventative, proactive and treatment fashion.

Physiotherapy for Respiratory and Cardiac Problems, edited by Pryor and Prasad is an excellent book that has lots of information that will help you and is really easy to understand. Good luck with it