Assessment of Breathlessness

In summary, breathlessness is an important symptom in a number of disease states. The most appropriate techniques for assessment of the symptom depend on the circumstances, ranging from the time-honoured clinical interview by a skilled observer, through questionnaires for epidemiological use, to direct scaling of the sensation by subjects under experimental conditions. The use of direct scaling techniques has enabled researching into mechanisms of breathlessness in recent years, resulting in an increased understanding of the sensation, but no significant therapeutic advances as yet. An area of current research interest is study of the different descriptors for the sensation used by different subjects. This may have great practical importance because it may be that, as with pain, different types of breathlessness will respond to different types of treatment.