Focus On Pediatrics-Asthmatic kids need self-management tools
Key is to educate parents
The need to respond to the increased number of asthma cases is urgent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Statistics reveal that the number of asthma sufferers more than doubled between 1980 and 1998. There were 17.3 million people with asthma in the United States in 1998, and about 4.8 million were children.
While it is not known why asthma is on the rise, the effects of the disease are clear. Asthma is the single largest reason children miss school — and when kids stay home, parents miss work. Although there have been many improvements in the clinical treatment of asthma, the CDC says visits to the emergency department and hospitalizations continue to increase. The CDC estimates that asthma-related costs will exceed $14.5 billion this year.
What can health care institutions do to address this problem? First, make sure children who have asthma are being diagnosed correctly, says Stephen Redd, MD, chief of the Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch at the National Center for Environmental Health, a division of the CDC. Teach parents and school teachers how to recognize the symptoms, which include shortness of breath (especially at night), coughing, and chest tightness. Once a child is diagnosed with asthma, families must learn how to manage the disease.
"Like diabetes, asthma is a disease where the patient has to be able to do a lot of the management," says Redd. Education should include les sons on how to administer medicine, which is frequently inhaled and is therefore more difficult to take than a pill. Parents and children need to learn what symptoms to watch for, how to measure breathing function with a peak flow meter, and what environmental factors trigger asthma. Exposure to cats, cockroaches, house dust mites, and cigarette smoke can trigger asthma.
While the steps for education seem simple, there are many barriers to the management of the disease. Controlling indoor triggers of asthma requires commitment from an asthma sufferer's family. Children with asthma often feel different from other children, which makes them reluctant to use inhalers. Also, many people, especially those in inner-city neighborhoods, have limited access to medical care.
To get a handle on childhood asthma, patient education managers must target parents providing education on how to manage the disease. There is currently no information on what parents can do to prevent the onset of asthma, says Redd.
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