Aspiration Pneumonia
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Top Contributors - Lucinda hampton
Introduction[edit | edit source]
Aspiration pneumonia (AP) is a common disease that frequently occurs in older patients, with many of these patients having a swallowing disability. Research is limited, but reveals that aspiration pneumonia contributes 5% to 15% of all community-acquired pneumonia. AP is frequently underdiagnosed as AP can be easily establish if overt aspiration events are witnessed, but often silent unobserved aspirations occurs making diagnosis of AP challenging. [1]
In pneumonia, microaspiration is the usual pathogenic mechanism, while “aspiration pneumonia” refers to the aspiration of a large amount of oropharyngeal or upper gastrointestinal content moving through the vocal cords and trachea into the lungs.[2]
Risk Factors[edit | edit source]
Include:
- Impaired swallowing (dysphagia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, neurological diseases eg stroke or dementia, need of mechanical ventilation),
- Weakened cough reflex (medications, stroke, dementia, impaired consciousness and alcohol).
- Reduced consciousness (acute stroke, head injury, brain lesions, seizures and the effect of some agents that can induce impaired consciousness such as alcohol, drugs, anesthesia or sedatives),
- Greater likelyhood of gastric contents reaching the lung (reflux and tube feeding).[2]
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Resources[edit | edit source]
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References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Almirall J, Boixeda R, de la Torre MC, Torres A. Aspiration pneumonia: A renewed perspective and practical approach. Respiratory Medicine. 2021 Aug 1;185:106485.Available:https://www.resmedjournal.com/article/S0954-6111(21)00191-8/fulltext#secsectitle0050 (accessed 12.11.2023)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Niederman MS, Cilloniz C. Aspiration pneumonia. Revista Española de Quimioterapia. 2022;35(Suppl 1):73.Available:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9106188/ (accessed 12.11.2023)
