3HEALTHCARE
progress of pneumonia. These are the virulence of the pathogen, response of the body against
infection as well as amount of organisms that can start the infection.
Such opportunists can spread via contaminated air droplets as well as also via blood.
Once they reach lungs, they try to invade the spaces present between the cells and the alveoli.
The immune system gets activates where the macrophages and the neutrophils try to inactivate
the micro-organisms thereby releasing cytokines and activating the immune systems. This of
often seen to result in fever (Mandell, 2015). Chills as well as fatigue in the affected individuals.
The bacteria, neutrophils as well as the fluid from the surrounding vessels are seen to fill up the
alveoli that result in development of the consolidation as seen on chest X-ray.
Asthma as a risk factor for pneumonia in the patient:
The patient in the case study named roger had developed bilateral pneumonia. One of the
risk factor that might have contributed to increase in his vulnerability to develop pneumonia may
be his childhood asthma. In order to understand how asthma in roger could have contributed to
pneumonia, a short description of how asthma affects individuals need to be well known. Among
asthma patients, inflamed airways are seen to react massively to environmental stimuli like that
of smoke, dust, pollen and many others. The airways are seen to become narrow and thereby
start producing excess of the mucus. This makes it difficult for the individuals to breathe.
Asthma mainly results from the immune response in the bronchial airways. Studies opine that
airways of the asthma are seen to be hypersensitive towards certain triggers like exercises,
dander, pollens and many others which are also called stimuli (Crowley et al., 2016). In response
to such triggers, the bronchi start contracting into spasms. This is then followed by inflammation
and this leads to further narrowing of the airways as well as excessive secretion of the mucus

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