ASTHMA PATIENTS NOT TREATED; REPORT SHOWS MOST CHILD SUFFERERS CAN'T ADEQUATELY MANAGE THEIR ILLNESS.

Byline: Steve Carney Daily News Staff Writer

Whether they awake gasping or simply too out of breath to play, more than eight in 10 children surveyed suffer from insufficient treatment for asthma, a report released Monday says.

The study focusing on the Valley children is of special interest in Los Angeles, which Asthma in America deemed the nation's asthma capital because the illness sends more children to emergency rooms here than anywhere else.

``We view it as a major problem,'' said Johanna Goldberg, vice president for programs at the American Lung Association, Los Angeles County, where about 336,000 children have the disease.

``We're dealing with a lot of children,'' she said, ``and the key to asthma is ongoing management.''

Such management is lacking among low-income children, according to the study, which found 84 percent of the asthmatic children surveyed often felt the effects of their condition - either waking up coughing twice in a month, feeling other symptoms twice in a week or being unable to do some activity because of the disease.

``There's a lot more that needs to be done for these patients,'' said researcher Eileen Yamada, a doctor with the state Health Services Department. She and her team of researchers presented their study Monday at the Lung Association's annual conference in San Diego.

``We need to make sure the patients are adequately educated to control their asthma,'' she said.

The children in the study aren't getting treated as often as they need to control their asthma, Yamada said, because of a range of factors including lack of education and money.

``These people do have other priorities and other problems in their life,'' Yamada said. ``These other issues need to be addressed, also. I wish there were one thing we could pin down to change everything.''

For example, a child may have an inhaler at home to dispense medication when he needs it, but his family may not be able to afford the $40 to buy an extra for school, Goldberg said.

``If there's a problem during the school day, it's an emergency,'' she said. Instead of needing only the inhaler, the child may need paramedics and a trip to the hospital after an attack hits.

To help avert such incidents, the American Lung Association offers several in-school programs to help asthmatic children in particular understand and take responsibility for their condition.

Free programs for school staff, parents and students in grades 3-5 teach about the disease and how to manage it. In addition, the students are told the disease isn't contagious, so they shouldn't shun asthmatic classmates, and are taught what they should do in an emergency.

The key, though, is teaching the kids with asthma how to manage their condition - being aware of symptoms, knowing when they shouldn't exert themselves, why they take their medication and what the illness does to them. They're also shown how staying on top of their condition and medication can keep at bay the wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath.

Yamada's study surveyed 87 children age 3 to 12 from July 1997 to June 1998. The researchers picked children who had made at least one emergency-room trip because of asthma in the previous year, and who had a smoker in their house.

The disease affects 14.6 million people in the country, and is the primary cause of school absences for chronic conditions, as opposed to temporary ailments, such as colds, Goldberg said.

Asthma check-up

Asthma can be fatal, but it also can be easily handled with proper treatment and care by the person who has it.

The disease affects nearly 15 million people in the United States, and symptoms include:

Coughing.

Wheezing.

Shortness of breath.

Tightness in the chest.

If a doctor's exam shows your child has asthma, faithful adherence to a plan of medication and monitoring can keep the asthma in check and enable him or her to keep up with the other kids at school and play, according to the American Lung Association.

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Box: Asthma check-up (see text)