In 1995, the United States saw nearly 2 million emergency room visits for asthma, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Once people with moderate to severe asthma were seen by an allergist, however, their hospital admissions rate decreased 67%. Why? Because when asthma is diagnosed and an asthma management plan is in place, the chance of needing emergency care drops sharply. With an asthma diagnosis, you can start treating the underlying disease, not just the symptoms. You can also regain control of your body and your life by working with your health care provider to create your own personal asthma management plan.

The National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP, a project of the National Institutes of Health) specifies the four parts of a successful asthma management plan.

1. Assessment and Monitoring

Because the goal of an asthma management plan is to improve your condition, you need some way to measure how well you’re doing. You’ll work closely with your health care provider to monitor your progress. The way you do this may involve:

• Tracking symptoms and warning signs
• Measuring lung function with a peak flow meter and recording the results
• Evaluating your day-to-day quality of life
• Reviewing how well your medication works and whether you have side effects
• Assessing how happy you are with the care you receive

2. Environmental Control

Work with your doctor to find the allergens and irritants that trigger your asthma episodes. Once you know what provokes your episodes, you’ll learn how to avoid those triggers. Medication may be needed to control the inflammation of your airways, but controlling the environment outside your body is just as important. Eliminating pollen, dust mites, molds, chemical fumes, and other potential triggers from your home can help prevent asthma episodes before they start, simply, easily, and without drugs.

3. Medication

The NAEPP recommends an approach to asthma medication called “step-wise care.” Imagine looking up a long staircase. Notice how the bottom step looks larger and each higher step looks increasingly smaller? That’s also a good way to think of step-wise care. When asthma is first diagnosed, you may need one big intervention to help you regain control. That’s the big bottom step. As your condition improves, your need for medication may shrink, representing the rest of the steps that appear to get smaller the farther up you go. The goal of step-wise care is to reach the top step, where you have good control with the least medication. Sometimes your asthma may get a little worse or a lot better. That’s fine, as long as you work in partnership with your physician and continue to improve over the long run.

4. Education

The NAEPP refers to education as the cornerstone of asthma management. You’re about to become an asthma expert. The more you know about asthma, about how asthma triggers affect your body, and about how to monitor and manage your own good health, the more quickly your quality of life will improve. Part of the education process is writing down your personal asthma management plan and your asthma action plan (your health care provider’s instructions for emergencies). Keeping communication with your health care provider open is a big part of education. You and your doctor will review your health records and asthma management plan often, making sure your management goals are achieved.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2007 at 8:40 am and is filed under Adult Asthma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.