Page 21 - Seniors Today Dec 2019

Health & Lifestyle

Off

with that

cough

What has age got to do with cough? A cough can be a symptom of an illness, or even a reaction to
medicine
Dr Aditya Agrawal explains

Cough is a protective reflex of our body. We required to cure you of your ailment.
cough involuntarily to protect ourselves or else Cough is often associated with several side
we would damage the breathing systems in our effects. We have had people having loss of sleep
body. or their partners are disturbed because of their
It can occur due to a large number of reasons. sleep. Some have had black outs due to attacks
The lungs, heart, ear, nose, throat and also of cough and in the most severe of cases we
acidity or that blood pressure may result in a have patients come to us with broken ribs due
cough. But before we advance to the treatment to the shear forces upon it. The elderly person
or grab a bottle of cough syrup, we need to ask coughing is at the greatest risk for falls and that
ourselves – what I am treating. is one dreaded complication.
Classifying cough on the basis of duration of In the younger population, allergies of the
symptoms helps to start of our quest to identify nose or throat, post nasal drip, asthma and acid
the reason for the cough. Further on we need to reflux are the cause of chronic cough in over
look for any red flags related to our cough such 90% of the cases. Sudden onset of cough in
as blood, or a person over 45 years getting a children often makes us look in their mouth for
new or worsening cough with or without voice
disturbance, a smoker (Current or ex) who has
smoked more than a pack a day for 10 years,
prominent shortness of breath in the day or at
night on lying down, fever, weight loss, swelling
over the feet or recurrent pneumonia, vomiting
with or without an abnormal respiratory
physical examination or chest radiograph.

Type of cough
The type of cough can tell a lot about the reason
for your cough and what measures would be Don’t neglect that cough, but get a proper diagnosis before taking
any medicine
21 SENIORS TODAY | Volume 1 | Issue 6