The two physiological disorders that I will be discussing include asthma and diabetes. This
assignment will also make reference to person A, who was interviewed as they live with
asthma, and person B, who was interviewed as they live with type 2 diabetes.
A physiological disorder is….
Asthma
According to Asthma UK, asthma is a long-term condition that affects the airways, which are
the tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs (Asthma UK, 2019).
Asthma is caused by swollen and sensitives airways that become narrow and clogged with
sticky mucus; this occurs in response to certain triggers such as pollution, smoke exposure,
or allergies. (NHS Choices, 2021)
Asthma has many signs and symptoms that are attached to the condition. A sign is the
objective evidence of a disease, such as a skin rash or a cough (Felman, 2018); a sign can
be seen physically. Symptoms, however, are subjective and can only be recognised by the
person experiencing them (Felman, 2018), such as backache, headache, stomach ache etc.
The most common asthma symptoms include wheezing, which is a whistling sound when
breathing; this suggests that someone is struggling to breathe due to the lungs becoming
inflamed and swollen.
Along with this, a sign and symptom are suffering from breathlessness, meaning the
individual is struggling to breathe in air. Along with this, continuous coughing.
Finally, a symptom is having a tight chest; person A describes this as feeling as having a
heavyweight lying on their chest.
Image 1: (Dunleavy, 2019). This is an asthmatic
bronchi tube compared to a normal bronchi tube. As we can see, there is swelling present in
the asthmatic tube and mucus, which is why asthmatic individuals struggle to breathe during
asthma attacks and from daily exercises.
Diabetes
Diabetes is a relatively common disease that occurs when the blood glucose levels are too
high. Blood glucose is the main source of energy in our bodies and is found in our food.
Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas which helps the glucose enter the cells to be used
for energy.
The most well-known forms of diabetes are type one diabetes, type two diabetes and
gestational diabetes.