Asthma Patients X–mas Holiday Precautions

GREATER KAILASH, India - Dec. 23, 2013 - PRLog -- People with asthma, bronchitis can safely travel by airplane, but they should be evaluated by their doctor beforehand, said Padma Shri and Dr B C Roy National Awardee Dr K K Aggarwal President, Heart Care Foundation of India.

As per a British report in the European Respiratory Journal, 18% of lung patients suffer some type of respiratory symptom on the plane –– most commonly shortness of breath, coughing and chest pain.

However, these symptoms are typically moderate requiring no serious incidents requiring an emergency landing.

Patients with severe, unstable asthma and those who have required recent hospitalization should not fly.

Asthmatic patients who do fly should carry on their person a beta–2 selective adrenergic agonist metered dose inhaler and a course of oral steroids.

Traditionally a pneumothorax is an absolute contraindication to air travel, and one should not travel until the pneumothorax resolves fully. Patients should have a chest x–ray to confirm resolution of a pneumothorax before flying.

Guidelines from the British Thoracic Society recommend that it is prudent to wait 7 days after x–ray resolution before flying and to delay flying for 2 weeks after traumatic pneumothorax.

Patients with sleep–disordered breathing who use CPAP or BiPAP may plan to sleep during a flight. If so, they should be encouraged to bring their home machine onto the flight and to first check with the airline about policies and power supply for the machine (battery versus using the airplane’s supply).

About HCFI : The only National Not for profit NGO, on whose mega community health education events, Govt. of India has released two National Commemorative stamps and one cancellation stamp, and who has conducted one to one training on" Hands only CPR" of 80967 people since 1st November 2012.

The CPR 10 Mantra is – "Within 10 minutes of death, earlier the better; at least for the next 10 minutes, longer the better; compress the centre of the chest of the dead person continuously and effectively with a speed of 10×10 i.e. 100 per minute."

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