Asthma Outliers
April 14th, 2010by Laurel
Today at St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic we’re holding our first Asthma Outliers Day. Now, what’s an outlier? An “outlier” is a patient in our chronic disease management program who has not been in for important medical visits such as medication adjustments, mental health counseling, or asthma education in over 6 months.
In an effort to help patients who might find it difficult to schedule an appointment we call these patients for Outliers Days where all clinic staff focuses on managing patients with one type of chronic disease for an entire afternoon. This way, patients see clinicians to get caught up on all dimensions of their health care needs all in one afternoon. For some of our diabetic and asthmatic patients this is more effective than attending a variety of appointments over time as they’re already overbooked trying to maintain living, food, and transportation needs.
Our chronic care program is tailored to the needs of our low income patients. We’ve seen improvement in our diabetic patients who have attended our Diabetes Outliers Days over the past year in lowering blood sugar levels. Through the care and guidance of clinic staff, patients gain a sense of ownership and empowerment in managing their own health. These events take place once a quarter and will continue as we continue to combat chronic disease in the Tenderloin.
Tags: medical clinic
December 20th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
A relevant but strangely ignored or not generally known fact about asthma and breathing troubles is that the change between weak (asthmatic) and strong (healthy) breathing is dependent on abdominal muscle tension. Slackening the muscles here causes abysmally weak and asthmatic breathing. Instead of describing an asthma attack as being like breathing through a straw, attempting to breathe vigorously with relaxed abdominal muscles provides a more genuine illustrative example. Training the muscles, for example by “abdominal hollowing” (see Web articles) produces an antiasthmatic effect. Abdominal muscle tension plays a prominent part in Asian martial arts.
I tend to breathe asthmatically after an evening meal or in pollen-laden air.
So it is fair to assume that there is a natural breathing spectrum with an asthmatic tendency at one end and Ku Fu or Karate breathing at the other end. For a few words on the Japanese version of Asian breathing see http://www.lrz.de/~s3e0101/webserver/webdata/OBT.pdf
Breathing powerfully into my lower abdomen with tensed muscles provides an effective cure for me. But then I’ve always been sceptical about medical wisdom on asthma: such a paradoxical and doctor-baffling increase in the last 40 years with modern, merely symptomatic inhalers. Respectfully, Richard Friedel