What Is Pneumonia

What Is Pneumonia

Typically, children may suffer from either bronchopneumonia, with its characteristic symptoms of a cough, cold , high temperature and fever, or pneumonia, with similar symptoms but some pain in the lungs.

Pneumonia suggests to parents a much more serious disease at all, but a term of which have the common factor of inflammation in the lungs. The severity of the condition varies depending on the age of the child, and the cause and extent of the inflammation. It can range from a harmless chance finding on an X-ray to a complication in children severely ill with almost any dangerous disease.

Pneumonia Causes

Pneumonia has many causes. Most commonly it is the result of a bacterial infection, but it may also be caused by a virus or a tiny organism belonging to the Mycoplasma family, or certain fungi (moulds). Even the inhalation of foreign materials, such as vomit, paraffin, furniture polish, white spirit- and in the case of a young child, a peanut - can inflame the lungs. Infection higher up the respiratory tree (breathing system), such as colds, croup, bronchitis and hooping cough, can all, with varying degrees or rarity, develop into pneumonia. Pneumonia, too, can be a complication of more general infection such as measles and chickenpox. The site infection is determined by the type of  pneumonia. For example, in  bronchopneumonia areas of infection will be scattered throughout the lungs, or lungs; whereas lobar pneumonia, as the name suggest, affect just the three lobes into which the lungs is divided. In all types of pneumonia there is damage to the air sacs in the lungs. Under normal condition these sacs are like tiny balloons full of air, In pneumonia, however, the sacs are full of  bacterial or viruses, body defense cells, fluid, dead and dying tissue and hair like strands of protein called fibrin. This makes the air sacs useless for their job of exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide between the air breathed in and the bloodstream.

*** Pneumonia Symptoms And Complication
*** Pneumonia Treatment And recovery

Pneumonia Symptoms And Complication

Pneumonia Symptoms

How ill the patient with pneumonia is depends largely on how much of the lungs is affected. In some case of pneumonia, the infection is so slight that there may be no symptoms at all. In fact, if chest X-ray were done on every child with a cough or cold, a surprising high number would show a minor degree of pneumonia. School age children may suffer typical lobar pneumonia. A day or two of a cold leads on to increase cough - initially dry but later producing phlegm which is frequently green or blood-stained. The during the day so that a temperature chart can look like an outline of a mountain range. At its height the child may shake all over (rigor).

The child's face become flushed, and his breathing rapid and shallow. With each breath there is pain over the side of the affected lungs, making him groan or cry out. Abdominal pain may be present rather than chest pain so that occasionally lobar pneumonia is initially mistaken for appendicitis. The neck may be stiff causing confusion with meningitis. Without treatment, the illness continues for several days antibiotics bring about recovery, although the child cough up phlegm for several days after feels better. Younger children and babies rarely have such a clear-cut illness, suffering instead from bronchopneumonia. The infant may appear to have a cough or a cold, or may just have a high temperature and fever, or have rapid, shallow breathing. In some cases there may be combination of all these symptoms, pneumonia can sometimes be difficult to diagnose without a chest X-ray. 

Pneumonia Complication

Virtually all children with pneumonia recover completely. Complication are rare, but when they do occur they can be very serious: the bags (pleura); which surround the lungs may begin to fill the space between the lungs and pleura  (empyema);  and infection in certain bacterial pneumonia may spread into the blood stream (septicaemia). There is a sight danger with pneumonia that sputum or phlegm may block an air tube causing part of the lung to collapse since no air can reach it. In small babies, pneumonia may be very difficult to diagnose and signs of the disease are sometimes found in babies who unexpectedly (cot-death) with no previous evidence of any lung problem having been visible.

Pneumonia Treatment

Pneumonia Treatment

The treatment of  pneumonia varies according to the case. In mild case, generally caused by a virus, no treatment at all may be necessary. However, where the child's breathing is laboured and if his tongue looks bluer than normal, then oxygen will be needed. If  part of the lungs has collapsed or if it sounds as thought the child has a great ideal of phlegm in his lungs, physiotherapy may be needed. 

Lobar pneumonia can be cured within two days with penicillin given by injection. The less clear-cut pneumonia's of infants and babies may or may not respond to against bacteria but not viruses.

Many cases of pneumonia can be treated at home, especially it breathing is not inadequate. Whether or not a child is sent to hospital, however, depends on his age, the severity of the illness, the anxiety of the doctor, the reaction of the parents and the adequacy of their home for housing a sick child-particularly in terms of warmth, damp and overcrowding.

Pneumonia Recovery

Complete recovery is the rule. And if the course of the illness is uncomplicated there is usually no need for convalescence. Most children return to school in a fortnight. With the exception of the newborn, for whom pneumonia in the first week or two of life is a dangerous even requiring intensive care and possibly mechanical ventilation, an attack of pneumonia neither weakens the child of pneumonia neither weakens the child, nor, as a general rule, the lungs.