Diagnosing asthma in infants and young children is often difficult, but there are a few distinctive early symptoms that parents can look for, including having wheezing episodes more than three times in a year and coughing when emotional or after exercise, a Taipei pediatrician said.
Reshining Clinic deputy superintendent Pan Chun-shen (潘俊伸) said he treated a boy who had suffered from coughing for more than a month and wheezing several times, and the boy’s mother was confused about her son’s condition, wondering whether he might have inherited her allergies, had asthma or just had a cold.
Pan said that many infants cough and wheeze when they have a respiratory tract infections or when the seasons change, and a study showed about 80 percent of infants (aged under two) wheeze when their respiratory tract is infected, but only about one-third will develop asthma.
The conventional method of examining asthma in young children is mainly aimed at children two years old or older, but an overseas study has suggested a 10-item asthma prediction tool that can help doctors and parents notice early signs of possible asthma, he said.
The items include gender, age, wheezing apart from colds, frequent wheezing, wheezing that interferes with daily activities, wheezing accompanied by shortness of breath, wheezing triggered by exercise and wheezing triggered by inhaled allergens (house dust, pollen or furry pets) eczema, and parental history of asthma.
Pan said that if the child is a boy about two or three years old, has wheezed more than three times in the past year, coughs when emotional or after exercise and has suffered from eczema, then the risk of developing asthma will be high.
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