Your Health

Device May Help Millions Of Americans Who Take Asthma Medication

Posted 7/22/2010

A new feature on an already available device may help patients ensure they are correctly delivering asthma medication into their lungs. This should be especially good news for parents of small children with asthma.

(NAPSI)-A new feature on an already available device may help patients ensure they are correctly delivering asthma medication into their lungs. This should be especially good news for parents of small children with asthma.

Devices known as valved holding chambers, used in combination with metered-dose inhalers (MDIs), allow patients who cannot effectively use inhalers alone to deliver inhaled medications to their lungs. If an inhaler is not used properly, the correct amount of medicine may not reach the lungs, ending up in the mouth and throat where it is not wanted.

A currently available valved holding chamber now includes features that make it easier to monitor the technique for inhaling medicine, helping to take the guesswork out of whether an inhaler is being used properly.

Called AeroChamber Plus Flow-Vu, this valved holding chamber includes a visual indicator designed to ensure proper inhalation technique. The indicator will move each time a patient takes a breath, allowing patients and caregivers to visually confirm the device is being used correctly. The device also allows patients and caregivers to count the number of breaths a patient has taken. Counting helps assure that the patient has emptied the chamber and received the entire dose of medication.

The chamber of the device has anti-static properties, which allow it to be used directly out of the package without pre-treatment. Made of anti-static polymers, the device works with the new HFA inhalers, which have replaced the old CFC inhalers. In addition, the device is manufactured free of the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA).

Asthma affects people of all ages, but it most often starts in childhoodi. A chronic lung disease that inflames and narrows the airways, asthma causes recurring periods of wheezing, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and coughingii. In the United States, more than 22 million people are known to have asthma, and nearly 6 million of these people are children, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Instituteiii.

AeroChamber Plus Flow-Vu is available by prescription only. More information about asthma is available on the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's website, www.nhlbi.nih.gov.

In the United States, more than 22 million people are known to have asthma, and nearly 6 million are children.

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[i] http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Asthma/Asthma_WhatIs.html

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid.