MANAGING ASTHMA
More than half a million people in New Zealand are on treatment for asthma. That’s one in every seven children, and one in nine adults. About 3500 children are admitted to hospital each year – and the severity of illness is likely to be far worse for Ma¯ ori and Pacific people, or those who live in areas of high deprivation.
As the very tragic story of Alicia Kirkpatrick (the 29-year-old mum and singer, who died last month of a sudden asthma attack) shows, this is a disease that can still be fatal, despite all the treatments we have available.
Learning how to manage your child’s asthma properly, and control the symptoms, is one of the most important things you can do to prevent a severe attack.
To support families with this goal, the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation of New Zealand launched a fabulous new resource at the start of the month called ‘‘Managing your child’s asthma’’.The resource is available both as a brochure and a userfriendly online tool, and helps parents, caregivers and children to answer these important questions:
❚ What is asthma?
❚ What are the symptoms?
❚ What are the triggers?
❚ How is it treated?
❚ What should I do to manage my childs asthma?
❚ What should I do in an emergency?
❚ Should my child be physically active?
❚ Who can help?
❚ Who are our asthma health providers?
Teresa Demetriou, from the foundation,says that poorly controlled asthma in children is responsible for a lot of time off school, and hence time off work for the caregivers.
The total cost currently to the nation is $858 million a year, not counting the stress and other impacts on whanau. Although we can’t ‘‘get rid’’ of asthma, effective treatment means we can nearly always get good control of the symptoms – leading to not only less time being sick, but greater levels of physical activity, better sleep and improved well-being.
Demetriou believes that involving children in the management of their asthma from an early age is the key to success. ‘‘Parents can help to educate their children by explaining what their different inhalers are for, and how important it is to take them every day. They can also get the child involved by counting the number of breaths they take through their spacer when using their inhaler.’’
However, she cautions against giving younger children complete control of their medication: ‘‘Parents should always be on hand to check that the inhaler is being used as it should and be aware of the number of times a reliever inhaler is being used – an important indicator that asthma is deteriorating.
‘‘Both parents and children should be aware of the signs to look for if their asthma is becoming worse and know what to do in the case of an emergency.’’
We know that when families visit their GP and are told their child has asthma, it can feel quite frightening and overwhelming for parents. It may not be the best time to be given a whole lot of new and very important information. With this new resource, families can now view the information and advice at a later date, and go over it together with their child.
Tragically, we remain a country that has some of the worse asthma rates in the world – at least partially attributed to poverty and a poor standard of housing. Until we address those issues, asthma will remain a major and serious contributor to ill health in our children.
Clearly this resource won’t reduce the numbers affected, but hopefully it will play a large part in ensuring that those children who do suffer from asthma are getting the best help and support possible.
To view the online resource or download the brochure, visit learnaboutlungs.org.nz