Along with an asthma management plan, your health care provider will probably give you a written asthma action plan. What’s the difference? Your asthma management plan is the tool you use to control and prevent asthma episodes. If an asthma episode occurs, your asthma action plan will take over and help you get through an it safely.

The National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP, a project of the National Institutes of Health) recommends a written asthma action plan for anyone with moderate to severe persistent asthma, and for people of any classification whose episodes are especially severe. Even if you have a mild intermittent classification, an asthma action plan will help you handle an asthma episode at home and make it clear when emergency medical intervention is needed. If you don’t yet have a written asthma action plan, talk to your doctor about developing one.

Your asthma action plan is uniquely your own. Everyone experiences slightly different symptoms at different stages of an episode. The first step toward developing a written plan will be working with your doctor to identify your unique early warning signs. Then, your physician will set down the warning signs you’ve identified on paper, and specify a clear action to be taken when they occur.

The characteristics of an asthma action plan

Your asthma action plan will probably include a list of your personal asthma triggers and early warning signs. A symptoms-based plan might include many sets of symptoms that get more and more severe. Each set of symptoms should specify a medication (or other action) to be taken.

If you normally use a peak flow meter to monitor your lung condition, then your asthma action plan may be based on your peak flow zones. Peak flow is the maximum amount of air you can expel forcefully from your lungs. Tracking your peak flow can alert you when your lung function is less than normal — the time when an episode is more likely to occur.

A peak flow-based asthma action plan will probably include green, yellow, and red peak flow zones. As with the symptoms-based action plan, each zone should name an action and medication to take depending on how you’re doing.

The part of your asthma action plan that identifies your personal danger signs, and tells you when to seek emergency medical help, could save your life. This is the part you should share with others. For instance, your asthma action plan may list one of your danger signs as difficulty walking and talking due to shortness of breath. It may be obvious to a spouse that you are short of breath, while you may not realize how far an asthma episode has progressed. If you’ve shared your asthma action plan danger signs, your spouse can remind you to check your plan, or take action on your behalf if you can’t.

Where to keep your asthma action plan

Keep extra copies of your plan at home, at work, in your pocket or wallet, and so on. Make sure someone other than you knows where you keep your plan — your spouse, older children, a coworker, or friend. Children and teens should always have an asthma action plan on file in school and day care settings. Remember to replace old copies whenever your health care provider changes your plan. At pennies per copy, it’s perhaps the least expensive life insurance you can buy.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 8th, 2007 at 10:42 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.