If Asthma Strikes During Game, Few Teams Are Ready

Main Category: Respiratory / Asthma
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 13 May 2009 - 3:00 PST

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If you've got a child playing spring sports, you may want to pay close attention to what's happening between plays.

Doctors say exercise-induced asthma is more common than you might expect - and most teams aren't prepared to deal with an attack. The worst part is, even if your child has no history of asthma, they could still be at risk.

Brooks Sposito was just a freshmen in high school when she felt a subtle but serious problem during track practice.

"I noticed after doing a lap I was breathing kind of heavy, so I was thinking maybe I should change my eating habits, maybe do more exercises during the weekends for track meets," says Brooke. But the problem wasn't her diet or her exercise routine. With no history and no warning, Brooke was actually having an asthma attack - brought on by exercise. It's a problem that quietly affects hundreds of thousands of athletes every year* - and a new study shows that when it happens, few teams are prepared to deal with it.

"A significant number of athletes, if they have an episode of asthma on the sideline, are not going to have the treatment needed immediately," says Jonathan Parsons, MD of the Ohio State University Medical Center.

That is something Dr. Parsons would like to change. He says simply having a rescue inhaler on the sideline could not only help athletes breathe easier, but in some cases, could save lives. But in his research, Dr. Parsons found that at the college level 40% of teams have no policy in place to make sure inhalers are on hand.*

"Maybe more importantly we found that only 17% of the programs that responded said that they used some form of objective testing to document whether an athlete actually has asthma or not," says Parsons. Testing is important because the symptoms of exercise-induced asthma are very subtle. Many athletes assume the shortness of breath, wheezing and fatigue are just part of the routine. But in cases like Brooke's, they proved to be serious symptoms of a disease she never knew she had. How do you know if your kid is in danger from exercise-induced asthma? Experts say if they get tired easily, wheeze or cough during exercise, you may want to get them checked out.

References:
*Prevalence of Exercise-Induced Bronchospasm in a Cohort of Varsity College Athletes
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, Official Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, September 2007.

Source
Ohio State University Medical Center