Exercise and Asthma: What The Physical Education Teacher Should Know

Introduction Asthma is one of the most common respiratory disorders in many parts of the world today. It has been established that as many as 14% of Singaporean elementary school children have asthma (Chay, 1990). This means that a physical education teacher in Singapore with a class of 40 students can expect to have, on the average, five or six students in that group who suffer from asthma. A total of 7,465 patients were admitted to Singapore hospitals with bronchial asthma during 1991 (Ministry of Health, Singapore, 1992). It has been claimed that as many as 10 million Americans are affected, 3 million under the age of 18 years and 7 million adults (American Lung Association, 1990) while the general prevalence has been determined as 6.6% (Dodge and Burrows, 1980). There were 4,300 asthma related deaths in the USA in 1988 and the annual economic cost of the disease, including direct and indirect costs, exceeded $4 billion in 1988 (American Lung Association, 1990). More than 1.2 million Canadians are asthmatic and the disease kills about 600 per year. It is imperative, therefore, that the physical education teacher has a sound understanding of the disease as an attack of asthma provoked by physical activity is a common occurrence.