Pediatric Asthma Management - Assignment Example

Physical examination will be carried out to check on the general appearance, hydration, respiratory and mental status. Physical examination of the 12 y/o patient will comprise of percussion, inspection, and auscultation. Under inspection, the nurse or health professional will observe the patient’s general color and appearance. There is a possibility of cyanosis during mild exacerbations where the patient’s color may remain pink. In the presence of asthma, an audible wheeze will be felt. For a severe case, the patient may have a barrel chest and manifestation of mildly enlarging work of breathing (Ricci & Kyle, 2009).

In auscultation and percussion, an exhaustive examination of the lung fields is performed. The presence of wheezing signify airway obstruction, which can be different in the lung fields. Also, the patient will be checked for the existence of coarseness. Additionally, the adequacy of aeration will be assessed. In the event the airways are severely obstructed, the movement of air becomes poor that the wheezes may not be felt during auscultation. It is worth to note that percussion may produce hyper resonance (Ricci & Kyle, 2009).

It is critical to perform some diagnostic tests to determine the severity of asthma. According to ATS Clinical Practice Guidelines, FENO is employed to underpin the diagnosis of asthma. Likewise, FENO utilized to determine eosinophilic airway swelling, direct dose titration of anti-inflammatory drugs, and forecast asthma relapse. Moreover, FENO can be used to assess adherence to anti-inflammatory drugs, predict asthma exacerbation and evaluate the possible reaction to anti-inflammatory medications (Davis, Eber & Koumbourlis, 2015).

Another vital test is pulmonary function test that is a peak expiratory flow rate that uses a hand-held peak flow meter. The test will be done to examine initial and post-treatment airway obstruction in the 12 y/o