New guidelines proposed by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute call for more patient involvement in treatment plan for their asthma. The report says that all patients should have customized treatment plans that will not only solve the problem, but also take into account any future risks likely to be experienced by the patients.
"Asthma control is achievable for nearly every patient," said Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. "As health-care providers and patients, we really should accept nothing less."
The guidelines stress that patients can lead active lives provided their disease is adequately controlled. Asthma is a severe respiratory illness that can impede a person's activities on a daily basis. The new guidelines say this need not be the case and that asthma can be controlled.
Childhood asthma has also been given importance in the guidelines. They say that doctors must pursue different treatment plans for different age groups like infants to 4 years old, 5 to 11 years old, and 12 and older. A new category of 5-11 age group was added to the guidelines because studies suggest that children in this group respond differently to medications than adults.
"Our hope is that these guidelines will help even more asthma patients feel better so they can lead active, full lives, not restrict their activities, sleep through the night and maintain normal lung function," Nabel said.
Children must be allowed to being inhalers to school in order to cope with unexpected attacks, the guidelines stress, adding that people aged 12 or older who suffer severe asthma must be given the drug omalizumab, to cope with allergic asthma.
Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer at the American Lung Association welcomed the new guidelines. "By focusing more on children, they are trying to get the attention of pediatricians to treating children with asthma," he added.
