Community-based asthma care 'more effective'
While children with asthma may find using portable oxygen beneficial, experts have suggested the management of their illness could be more effective overall if it was extended outside of hospitals and doctor's offices.
Researchers at the Merck Childhood Asthma Network in the US found community-based care in five projects they conducted helped the guardians of children with the disease feel more confident in their ability to control the illness.
Asthma-related school absences fell by at least 80 per cent and there were fewer hospitalisations and visits to casualty.
Leonard Jack, editor-in-chief at Health Promotion Practice, in which the study was published, said: "Unfortunately, there is a gap between the care that children with asthma should receive and the care they actually receive."
As many as 5.4 million people in the UK are currently being treated for the lung condition, NHS Choices figures have shown, which is one in 11 children and one in 12 adults.
Posted by Jenny Richards
10/11/2011 16:07:12
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