Irish Asthma and their new Asthma Coach

Asthma is a condition which is very manageable and very treatable providing asthmatics take their condition seriously. This involves carrying their inhalers with them most places they travel, knowing what to do in case of an asthma attack and trying to avoid situations where an attack is likely to occur. Unfortunately people are people and not everyone is going to treat their condition with the respect and forethought it requires. When they don’t their condition will worsen, they could suffer from more attacks and if worse comes to worst, they’re likely to die.

In Ireland there’s an excess of asthmatics that ignore their condition or simply don’t treat it as they should. The country itself has the fourth highest percentage of asthmatics in the world with over 470,000 people living with asthma in the country at this time. Of these people, 60% don’t have their condition under good control. That’s a whopping 282,000 people who are regular visitors to the emergency room due to their own lack of caution or care. That’s a worrying figure when you consider the amount of hours health professionals have to spend treating conditions which would have been preventable in the first place. Those doctors and nurses could miss out of saving a life because they’re too busy helping a careless asthmatic!

If you were to look at these wasted hours purely from a fiscal point of view, each yeah asthma costs Ireland 533,000 euros. This is an astounding amount of money for one disease to cost such a relatively small country. With even a slight increase in knowledge and preventative measures that number could be cut down drastically and that’s why the Asthma Society of Ireland has released Asthma Coach. This is an app and an interactive website which will help to provide useful pointers for asthmatics. These should help them live healthier lives less prone to asthma attacks and other medical complications.