It can be seen how many of these factors may interact, as shown in Figure 1. This demonstrates how even a patient with a disastrous developmental background, major medical problems, and a strong biologic propensity to develop both asthma and psychiatric disorders may still adapt well if he has good insight into his problems and [...]
The physician-patient relationship has been extensively studied by such authors as Balint, but there are certain characteristics of patients with asthma that might make one expect the relationship between patient and physician, which is likely to be a long- term one, to be particularly complex. Dirks et al conducted a study to see how patient [...]
Breathing is a basic physiologic function, and acute dyspnea is one of the most frightening human experiences. It might be thought to be abnormal for a patient suffering an acute attack of asthma not to feel at least somewhat afraid. Asthmatic patients suffering from anxiety disorders usually hyperventilate, and many of them report phobic avoidance [...]
A further biologic factor that may cause anxiety may occur if hyperventilation and panic are misconstrued as being indicative of a worsening of the patients respiratory disorder. If this happens, then dosages of asthma medications may be inappropriately increased which in the case of methylxanthines and p2-adrener- gic agonists are likely to make patients physiologically [...]
The Interaction of Medical, Psychologic, and Social Issues in Asthma and Their Effect on Levels of Individual Disability Asthma and the anxiety disorders are separate autonomous medical conditions. The relatively common occurrence, however, of anxiety disorders in asthmatics and in patients with other forms of chronic respiratory disease has been well documented, as has the [...]
Despite considerable debate, the most accepted definition of asthma is that it is a disorder of the respiratory tract, characterized by a hyperreactive bronchial tree, producing episodes of reversible airway obstruction. Gross, in a discussion on the problems of defining asthma, quoted Permutt as stating “asthma is like love, we all know what it is [...]
