- The educational environment should have more information about asthma to improve early diagnosis and help children suffering crises in school. Only 30% of teachers would help children having an asthma attack rather than calling parents. - A new website called "Respirar" was launched on World Asthma Day to provide quality information on asthma to medical professionals and families. It aims to complement information families can access and ask questions about children's health. - Teachers need more knowledge about asthma, as their lack of understanding represents an obstacle to helping children experiencing symptoms like coughing during exercise or sleep.

1. Due to the high prevalence of this pathology among children and teenagers
MORE EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATION TO DEAL WITH CHILDREN WHO
SUFFER FROM ASTHMA
- The Respiratory Tract Group at AEPap and Fundació Roger Torné have
relaunched the site ‘Respirar’ in the World Asthma Day.
- The educational milieu should have more information about asthma, to improve
the early diagnosis and to help those children who suffer a crisis at school.
- Only a 30% of the teachers would intervene to help children rather than calling
the parents or the headmaster
- When doing exercise or sleeping, the children’s coughing should make us
suspect or else the symptoms can get worse.
Madrid, 3rd of May, 2012. A 10% of children and teenagers suffer from asthma. Experts agree
that one of the causes for this is pollution and climate, which raises the number of mites in the
environment.
In the World Asthma Day, with the aim to give quality information about this pathology, the
Respiratory Tract Group at AEPap and Fundació Roger Torné have relaunched the site
‘Respirar’ (www.respirar.org). ‘We consider necessary to give rigorous and quality-focused
content both to health professionals and to patients with asthma and their families. This web is a
warranty in this sense because AEPAP will coordinate its contents from now on’, Soledad
Román, Fundació Roger Torné’s General Manager said.
Also, Román appreciated that ‘for us it is essential to ensure uninterested help to families and
we think that it is very important to complement, via web, the chance that they can formulate
questions and find contrasted information about everything related to children’s health and
environment’
Teacher’s implication
1
As the Internation Study Asthma and Allergy Children (ISAAC) , Study about allergy and
asthma in children says, in Spain between 8 and 15 students out of 100, suffers from
asthma.’Given the high incidence of this pathology, it is important that the educational
environment has more information about it, to prevent early diagnosis and to avoid asthma
crisis in school’s timetable’, Manuel Praena, coordinator at the GVR (Respiratory Tract Group)
in AEPap.
1
García-Marcos L, Quirós AB, Hernández GG et al. Stabilization of asthma prevalence among
adolescents and increase among schoolchildren (ISAAC phases I and III) in Spain. Allergy. 2004
Dec;59(12):1301-7.

2. Up to a 60% of the teachers in secondary education thinks that given grief symptoms, their way
2
to act would be to call the parents or the headmaster, while just a 30% would directly help0. As
Dr. Praena says, ‘this attitude represents an obstacle […], maybe because of the scarce
knowledge they have about the pathology or the legal consequences of their intervention.’
‘Respirar’
The site ‘Respirar’, with high popularity at an international level, orientates about the suitable
conditions that have to be accomplished in a school or institute that cares to give a safe and
healthy milieu for their asthmatic students.
How to control asthma
The patient should:
- Have a written treatment for his/her pathology.
- Have the medicines prescribed by the doctor.
- Know and avoid the factors that can unchain an asthma crisis.
- Learn to recognize the symptoms of an asthma crisis.
- Know what to do when an asthma crisis.
We consider that somebody is in control of asthma when he/she:
- Hasn’t got asthma symptoms such as coughing in the mornings or when running.
- Can sleep well without getting up.
- Doesn’t need relief medicines.
- Doesn’t have asthma attacks
- Can do all the sport activities and free time activities that he/she wishes.
The asthma symptoms are coughs and when they get worse, whistles and difficulty to breathe.
In words of Dr. Manuel Praena, ‘we have to suspect about a possible asthma diagnosis when,
while doing exercise or night sleeping, coughing appears. If this happens, the boy should be
attended because, if not, symptoms could get worse and a respiratory difficulty crisis could
come.
More information at:
Gabinete de Prensa de la AEPap
Berbés Asociados
Sara Nieto / Alba Corrada
saranieto@berbes.com / albacorrada@berbes.com
Tel.: 91 563 23 00
Móvil: 637 556 452 / 670 655 038
Prensa Fundación Roger Torné:
Marta Rosés
mroses@fundrogertorne.org
Tel.: 93 467 62 06
Móvil: 649 880 752
2
López-Silvarrey Varela A. coordinador. Estudio sobre el asma en los centros escolares españoles
(EACEE). 2009-2010. A Coruña. Fundación María José Jove; 2011