The lungs are a pair of breathing organs located with in the chest.

Their function is to remove carbon dioxide from the air and bring oxygen to the blood. Pneumonia is a serious infection that affects the lungs. It is caused by viruses, bacteria, fungi, or the parasites, but most commonly pneumonia is caused by bacteria and viruses.

Viruses and bacteria cause most case of pneumonia. The bacterial variety usually begins suddenly and often develops during or after upper respiratory infections. Parasites and other organisms can cause pneumonia to develop as well, and so can some allergies.

Aspiration pneumonia can develop if a person inhales powdered medication, food, vomit, or mucus into the lungs.Inhaling infected air can be the cause of pneumonia if a person has a weak immune system. Therefore, children and elderly people are at higher risk for pneumonia than healthy younger people.

Most people who develop pneumonia initially have the symptoms of a cold.

This is followed by a high fever (sometimes as high as 38.3° Celsius), shivering with chills, and cough with sputum production. Patients may become short of breath. Chest pain may develop if the outer aspects of the lung are involved. For some people with pneumonia, coughing is not a major symptom because the infection is located in areas of the lung away from the large airways.

At times, the individual’s skin color may change and become dusky or purplish due to their blood being poorly oxygenated. Elderly people may also have few symptoms with pneumonia.

Diagnosis
Diagnosis of pneumonia is usually made from a medical history, physical exam and chest X-ray. The chest X-ray is done to look for changes in the lungs that may indicate pneumonia, other causes of symptoms, or complications of pneumonia. However pneumonia that develops within 24 hours, along with severe dehydration or an indication of low white blood cell count, can hardly be detected by a chest X-ray. There are the several other exams available:
A sample of the sputum can be incubated and the offending bacteria can be subsequently identified. A blood test can measure the white blood cell count. In up to 50% of the cases, the organism (such as bacterium or virus) that is causing the pneumonia infection is not identified even with those tests.

Treatment
Primarily antibiotics are used for the treatment of bacterial pneumonia. The doctor will base the prescription on the medical history, a physical exam, age, other symptoms, and degree of severity.

Oral antibiotics are taken for 1-2 weeks, but a longer time may be needed for children or elderly people.
Between 50% and 90% of pneumonia patients may be treated as outpatients. These patients usually respond well to the latest oral antibiotics.
Pneumonia patients usually do not need a special diet. Generally the treatment requires the patient to drink lots of liquids, use a humidifier, and get extra oxygen if necessary.

Patients may need to apply a hot pack to reduce chest pain and take a non-steroidal antiphlogistic. The patient needs to spit out the sputum when coughing; therefore, no cough medication is prescribed.
When coughing interrupts sleep, a cough medicine may be used. Medications for headache and fever may be used. When patient has difficulty in coughing up sputum, an expectorant can be used to dilute the sputum and aid in its elimination.