Monitoring Asthma PDF

Preface

Asthma is responsible for a vast and increasing level of illness in our society. Since asthma is a chronic illness, subject to periodic exacerbations and remissions, the monitoring of asthma is an essential component of asthma management. Not only is it necessary for physicians to monitor the management of the patient with asthma, there are also opportunities and benefits associated with self-monitoring of asthma by individuals with asthma, and for monitoring the quality and cost of care delivered to patients with asthma. Indeed, monitoring asthma outcomes is an essential step towards the successful implementation of the National Guidelines for the Management of Asthma.

This book deals with monitoring asthma from each of these perspectives. Self-monitoring by patients with asthma can involve measurements of symptoms or lung function using a variety of tools that can be recorded in a diary or via electronic means. This also involves the increasing and exciting possibilities of monitoring asthma using the Internet. Each of these parameters is considered, together with critical reviews of the individual's monitoring devices and their interpretation using familiar and innovational statistical techniques.

Health professionals also need to monitor patients with asthma. This not only involves monitoring control of asthma, but also management skills, adherence to treatment, and the investigation of significant asthma triggers, such as in occupational asthma. There are also some exciting developments from research that may be applicable to monitoring patients with asthma. These include the benefits of monitoring airway responsiveness in clinical practice together with markers of airway inflammation.

A crucial aspect of asthma care involves putting all the different pieces together. This means delivering the best quality asthma care at a variety of levels. In order to do this, it is important to monitor the quality and cost of asthma care. Some exciting developments have occurred in this area in a variety of disciplines. These are reviewed and examined in the context of monitoring asthma care. In addition, the important lessons learned from post-marketing surveillance and monitoring asthma mortality are examined and described in this book.

Monitoring of asthma is an important part of good asthma care. This book will be a valuable resource for health professionals involved in asthma care who are seeking to monitor patients in their practice or to help patients as they learn to monitor their illness. This book will also be of value to health system administrators and policy makers in outlining the successful approaches of monitoring the quality and cost of asthma care.