What Is Pedestrian Pneumonia and How Is It Different From Regular Pneumonia?
Walking pneumonia may sound intimidating, but it only means a mild case of pneumonia — the patient is “walking,” not lying in bed or in the hospital. Hillary Clinton is just one of an estimated 4–5 million people who develop a similar lung infection each year.
“Pneumonia while walking is not a technical term,” says Dr. Albert Rizzo , head of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine and Resuscitation at Christiana Care Health System . The closest term in medical terminology is community-acquired pneumonia, meaning that the patient contracted it somewhere in everyday life, and not during a hospital stay due to some other medical condition.
What is pneumonia?
Pneumonia is an infection of the parenchyma of the lung , which is the part of the lung where the air sacs called the alveoli are located . This is in contrast to bronchitis , which is an infection of the tubes called bronchi that lead from the throat to the air sacs.
Pneumonia can be a serious and even life-threatening condition, especially if someone gets it in addition to other medical conditions. People who are very young or very old are at greatest risk, or people who have other lung conditions initially. If they get pneumonia in a hospital or nursing home, this is a more serious case. It can be antibiotic resistant, making it difficult to treat.
How bad is walking pneumonia?
But a mild pneumonia disease is quite possible, and here there is a “walking” pneumonia. If you are an otherwise healthy person and the virus or bacteria that infect you are not particularly dangerous, you may have no symptoms worse than coughing and a little fatigue. Symptoms can also include fever and chills.
Where does pneumonia come from and what to do about it?
The infection that causes pneumonia can be caused by a virus, bacteria, or sometimes other types of germs, such as fungi. Dr. Rizzo says that community-acquired pneumonia is often due to the bacteria Streptococcus or Staphylococcus .
There is no particular way to avoid pneumonia other than taking care of yourself and avoiding germs usually with boring but effective means like washing your hands. There is a vaccine against several types of bacteria that cause pneumonia , and it is recommended for children under six, people over 65, and anyone with risk factors such as chronic lung disease.
Antibiotics are the standard treatment for bacterial pneumonia, and within a day or two, the patient usually begins to feel better. At the same time, the patient must rest, eat well and stay hydrated.
Illustration by Jim Cook .