Asthma

A great starting point is the British Thoracic Society’s website (www.brit-thoracic.org.uk/guidelines.html). It has loads of in-depth resources, including the famous stepwise guidelines for adults and children.

If you’re in a general practice setting, you might find the Asthma UK website useful (www.asthma.org.uk). They’ve obviously put a lot of effort into making it look appealing, and it has sections for patients and health professionals. I particularly like the animated inhaler demonstrator, which grabs the interest of children that come into the surgery and saves me trying to demonstrate correct inhaler technique. This feature also has animations for the more unusual inhalers, in case you ever come across one you haven’t seen before.

Another common problem I have when seeing patients with asthma is that there’s never a chart of standard peak flow values when you need it. The website www.peakflow.com includes predicted peak flow graphs for adults and also some standard values for children. You can’t escape the fact that it’s published by peak flow meter manufacturers for a second, but it is still useful. It can also convert values from the old peak flow meters to conform to newer European standards.

If you’re likely to come across an exam station that demonstrates spirometry or perhaps have to explain it to a patient, try the Australian National Asthma Campaign’s website, which hosts a video that shows how to explain it to a patient and how to perform spirometry (www.nationalasthma.org.au/html/management/home/index.asp).The site also gives some information about interpreting spirometry, and other information, such as asthma action plans.

The prize for the most surprising website has to go to the UK Health and Safety Executive, which has an interesting page about occupational asthma (www.hse.gov.uk/asthma). It’s mostly aimed at the public but gives a simple introduction to occupational asthma, with case studies. The site is simple and easy to navigate, but there’s also a downloadable list of agents recognised to cause occupational asthma, which would impress even the most ardent of respiratory consultants.

Competing interests: None declared.

Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

       

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