According to the charity Asthma UK Scotland, more than 145,000 people living in Scotland are currently unaware they could have a potentially fatal asthma attack. The charity said 49 per cent of people who are suffering with asthma and over the age of 12, did not realise they were at increased risk of an asthma attack.
This data was published alongside the Stop Asthma Deaths campaign as an example of how bad the issue can be. People who currently live with asthma are being urged to take the charity’s online test, which can analyse their risk level
The Triple A: Avoid Asthma Attacks test also provides advice and guidance for how to minimise your possibility of an attack. Asthma UK Scotland wants to reduce the number of deaths that are due to asthma attacks, which claimed the lives of 94 people in Scotland in 2011. Across the UK, 1,140 people die each year from an asthma attack. Interestingly the charity said the vast majority of these deaths should be preventable.
It’s a fact that we can all help stop asthma deaths, and we need to start by changing the attitude that ‘it’s just asthma’ and that it can’t do too much harm. Aileen Alexander, whose daughter Kiera died aged 11 in September 2010, suggested that asthma needs to be taken much more seriously.
“She was a bit breathless and took a couple of puffs of her inhaler, as normal,” she said, described the day her daughter died “later that night, she came into our room, saying she was finding it hard to breathe. We told her to take her inhaler and go back to sleep.”
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