Childhood Asthma

The word asthma comes from the Greek word aazein which means to exhale with one's mouth open or to breathe with a pant; in literature its first emergence appears in the Illiad (Benson & Haith, 34). The exact definition of asthma be it with children or adults is that it is "a chronic disease of the lung manifest clinically as episodic obstruction of pulmonary airflow (Benson & Haith, 34). Asthma is an extremely common childhood illness and one which appears to be increasing each year with the number of children who have died from asthma tripling in the last few years (Martin & Fabes, 262). This is a major public health concern as asthma not only contributes to many missed days of school for children, as well as hospitalizations, but it puts an enormous strain on the health care industry. "Hospital admission for asthma alone increased from 21...
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