Your patient is alert, not cyanosed and there are no signs of fatigue. Therefore, you correctly conclude that there is no evidence currently to think her asthma attack is life threatening.
As your history was limited, you sit down in the office to look through her records and see that she has previously been admitted to ITU twice before for her asthma. Just as you start to sweat a little, the nurse pesters you with the patient’s observations again.
This triggers you to recall that the classification for acute severe asthma only actually requires any one of:
- PEF 33-50% best or predicted
- Respiratory rate ≥25/min
- Heart rate ≥110/min
- Inability to complete sentences in one breath
The word ‘severe’ scares you so quickly ask the nurse to pop her on some oxygen and get more information with: