title: The capacity of children with and without asthma to detect external resistive loads on breathing.
abstract: Clinical observations and research with adults consistently showed that subjective symptoms of asthma poorly reflect actual airway obstruction. The lack of accurate symptom perception poses a problem for medication and management of asthma. The accuracy of airflow detection was studied in 46 children with and 46 without asthma (aged 7-18 years). They breathed through a facemask and responded to load stimuli of different intensity. Sessions consisted of 10 blocks of 5 min, each with 10 stimuli presented. Experiment 1: Loads of increasing intensity presented to 36 children with and 36 without asthma. Seven asthmatics had a reliable detection threshold (just noticeable difference, jnd) analogous to approximately equal to 64% fall in forced expiratory volume in 1 sec (FEV1). Ten normal controls had a jnd of approximately 39% fall. Experiment 2: Loads randomly presented to 10 children with and 10 without asthma. Four asthmatics had a jnd of approximately equal to 64% fall in FEV1. Six normal controls had a jnd of approximately equal to 39% fall. The results demonstrated that children generally were poorly perceiving load stimuli and that asthmatics were less accurate.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rietveld
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Prins
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Kolk
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001249:Asthma / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005541:Forced Expiratory Volume; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010465:Perception; D012123:Pulmonary Ventilation; D012684:Sensory Thresholds; D014797:Vital Capacity