DaytonDailyNews.com

THE DEAL

Breathing disorders are the top reason children younger than 15 go to an emergency room or stay in a hospital. Unlike pneumonia and bronchitis, asthma is a chronic disease that usually can be controlled by taking medications and avoiding the irritants that trigger an attack.

For that to happen, though, parents and school personnel must work together.

• Make a written plan with the doctor. Include medications, asthma triggers, emergency response and instructions about physical activity. Take it to whomever needs it — teacher, school nurse, coach.

• Watch for signs the asthma may not be under control. Examples could be nighttime coughing, noisy breathing or wheezing, fatigue or sleep difficulty.

• Test for allergies.

• Help kids deal with exercise-induced asthma, which tends to increase in teens. It helps to breathe through the nose instead of the mouth, warming and moistening air before it reaches the airways.

Aerobic exercise helps improve airway function by strengthening the breathing muscles, said Dr. James Wedner of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, but only when kids warm up properly and have rescue medications available in case of an attack.

• Students can keep and use asthma inhalers, by law, with parent and doctor notes.

• Bus fumes trigger asthma attacks, so buses shouldn't idle near school buildings.

• Know asthma triggers: art and craft supplies, dry erase boards, copiers, pesticides, paint, perfumes, chemicals and the classroom hamster.

• Since mold is often an asthma trigger, Children's Medical Center's Dr. Robert Fink would like all school carpeting removed. Under hundreds of wet feet, he said, "school carpeting has more mold than industrial plants."

• Ideally, Fink said, all schools would have air conditioning.

MORE INFO

Go to www.lungusa.org under "Asthma & Allergy."

— Kevin Lamb