Understanding Asthma

Description

Most people would recognise asthma in a child or adult as attacks of wheezy breathelssness, somtimes on exertion, somtimes at rest, somtimes mild, sometimes severe. Some would recognise specific 'triggers' - for example animals, fumes, pollens,. Some might think of asthma as a condition of children, some as a condition able to affect somone of any age. Some would regard occasional nuisance requiring intermittent treatment. Surely they all can't be right? - in a way they can, although it is this wide range of factors involved in asthma that makes it difficult to come up with a simple definition.

Contents

• What is asthma
• How much asthma is there?
• Causes and triggers of asthma
• Symptoms and diagnosis
• Prevention and self-help
• Drugs used in the treatment of asthma
• The managment of asthma
• Asthma in elderly people
• Special forms of asthma
• Occupational asthma
• Complementary treatments
• The future
• Questions and answers
• Useful addresses
• Index
• Your pages

About the author

Professor Jon Ayres - after an honorary appointment as Professor of Respiratory Mdeicine at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, the author is now Professor of Environmental and Occupationsl Medicine in the University of Aberdeen. He has a special interest in asthma and the effects of air pollution on the lungs.