National and international asthma management guidelines advocate a stepwise approach to asthma treatment based on severity-based classification of patients. Although this approach serves an important purpose in guiding therapeutic decision making and decreasing unnecessary variation in care, it has limitations— particularly with respect to the management of what the guidelines define as mild an...

BACKGROUND Asthma is one of the most common long-term conditions worldwide, which places considerable pressure on patients, communities and health systems. The major international clinical guidelines now recommend the inclusion of self management programmes in the routine management of patients with asthma. These programmes have been associated with improved outcomes in patients with asthma. Ho...

Airways hyper-responsiveness (AHR) is found in almost every patient with asthma. The degree of AHR is variable between individuals with asthma and can correlate to the severity of the underlying asthma. Equally treatment of asthma can modify the degree of underlying AHR. Measures of Airway hyper-responsiveness or bronchial challenge testing are therefore important in both the assessment and man...

Until recently, no point-of-care tool was available for assessing the underlying airway inflammation associated with asthma. Fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) emerged in the last decade as an important biomarker for asthma assessment and management. Evidence also indicates that FeNO is most accurately classified as a marker of T-helper cell type 2 (Th2)-mediated airway inflammation with a ...

BACKGROUND Asthma is an important cause of morbidity, absence from school, and use of health services among children. Computer-based educational programs can be designed to enhance children's self-management skills and to reduce adverse outcomes. OBJECTIVE To assess the effectiveness of an interactive device programmed for the management of pediatric asthma. DESIGN A randomized controlled t...

OBJECTIVE To examine the reliability and validity of the Family Asthma Management System Scale for low-income African-American children with poor asthma control and caregivers under stress. The FAMSS assesses eight aspects of asthma management from a family systems perspective. METHODS Forty-three children, ages 8-13, and caregivers were interviewed with the FAMSS; caregivers completed measur...

BACKGROUND Bronchial asthma is a serious global health problem. Depression, the most common mood disorder, is often found to be higher among people with chronic health conditions like bronchial asthma. METHODS Patients with newly diagnosed to have bronchial asthma (n = 100) who fulfilled the study criteria were evaluated for depression with Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) score. Severity and ...

BACKGROUND Despite a better understanding of the pathophysiology of asthma, presence of reliable diagnostic tools, availability of a wide array of effective and affordable inhaled drugs and simplified national and international asthma management guidelines, asthma remains poorly managed in India. OBJECTIVE The Asia-Pacific Asthma Insight and Management (AP-AIM) study was aimed at understandin...

he understanding of childhood asthma has increased substantially since the publication of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ) position statement The role of corticosteroids in the management of childhood asthma in 2002.1 In particular, recognition of the need for separate asthma management guidelines for children aged 5 years or younger has increased,' and considerably mor...