BMJ 2001;322:1075-1076 ( 5 May )

Editorials

Dysfunctional breathing and asthma

It is important to tell the difference

General practice p 1098

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

General practitioners and emergency departments from time to time see patients with asthma who appear very breathless, with fast deep breathing and wheeziness, who complain of tingling lips and hands and who recover quite rapidly after breathing in and out of a paper bag and then using a few puffs of salbutamol. Asthma and anxiety with dysfunctional breathing are both common conditions and they often coexist. Indeed, a paper in this week's issue suggests a very high prevalence of dysfunctional breathing among patients with asthma.1 There are reasons to doubt the prevalence suggested by this paper, but the overlap between anxiety and asthma nevertheless creates a problem for patients and their doctors since we seem not to be very good at telling the difference.

Several studies have shown that patients with asthma have significantly higher anxiety scores than normal and are more likely to have clinically diagnosed panic disorder. 2 3 Conversely, . . . [Full text of this article]
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Articles

Dysfunctional breathing and asthma
Simon J C Davies, Peter R Jackson, Lawrence E Ramsay, Dick Kuiper, and Mike Thomas
BMJ 2001 323: 631. [Extract] [Full Text]

Prevalence of dysfunctional breathing in patients treated for asthma in primary care: cross sectional survey
Mike Thomas, R K McKinley, Elaine Freeman, and Chris Foy
BMJ 2001 322: 1098-1100. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Weinberger, M., Abu-Hasan, M. (2007). Pseudo-asthma: When Cough, Wheezing, and Dyspnea Are Not Asthma. Pediatrics 120: 855-864 [Abstract] [Full text]  
  • Warburton, C J, Jack, S (2006). Can you diagnose hyperventilation?. Chronic Respiratory Disease 3: 113-115  
  • Bruton, A., Holgate, S. T. (2005). Hypocapnia and Asthma: A Mechanism for Breathing Retraining?. Chest 127: 1808-1811 [Abstract] [Full text]  
  • Cooper, S, Oborne, J, Newton, S, Harrison, V, Thompson Coon, J, Lewis, S, Tattersfield, A (2003). Effect of two breathing exercises (Buteyko and pranayama) in asthma: a randomised controlled trial. Thorax 58: 674-679 [Abstract] [Full text]  
  • McKenzie, S A, Bush, A (2003). Difficult asthma in children. Arch. Dis. Child. 88: 168-169 [Abstract] [Full text]  
  • McKenzie, S A, Bush, A (2002). Difficult asthma in children. Thorax 57: 915-916 [Abstract] [Full text]  
  • Davies, S. J C, Jackson, P. R, Ramsay, L. E, Kuiper, D., Thomas, M. (2001). Dysfunctional breathing and asthma. BMJ 323: 631-631 [Full text]  

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Asthma and hyperventilation
Robert Gorman
bmj.com, 8 May 2001 [Full text]
Brisbane trial shows benefits of Buteyko breathing techniques
Dick Kuiper
bmj.com, 13 May 2001 [Full text]
Pause before you Puff
Roger L Price
bmj.com, 21 May 2001 [Full text]
Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ