Question

Suppose after a high-smog alert day in your city, a 5-year-old child with asthma, a 50-year-old male smoker with emphysema, and a 75-year-old of average health all come to the emergency room complaining of a cough and chest pain. Which patient’s health would you be the most concerned about and why? How do breathed-in air pollutants, such as smoke or asbestos, interfere with or worsen the respiration process in each of these scenarios?

Answer 1

I will be most concerned about 5 years old child because children are more sensitive to pollution. Children breathe faster and their air passages are narrower, so they easily gets obstructed with less inflammation too. Also children spends their time playing outdoor games .

They also are more likely to have asthma or other respiratory illnesses, which are aggravated by air pollution.

Pollutants such as smoke or asbestos irritates the air passages initiating asthma episodes, coughing and chest pain. So these can be harmful in each case. Exposure to such pollutants may also result in Lung cancer, heart attack and stroke.