Hospital highlights

May is allergy and asthma awareness month. Asthma affects an average of one out of every 10 school-aged children in the United States. Asthma is a serious, sometimes life-threatening chronic respiratory disease that affects the quality of life for almost 25 million Americans, including an estimated 7 million children. In Whitman County, one of every 9 adults has asthma (higher than the state average). In addition, asthma is a leading cause of hospital emergency department visits and school absenteeism.

Asthma is a disease of the lungs in which the airways become blocked or narrowed causing breathing difficulty. Although there is no cure for asthma yet, asthma can be controlled through medical treatment and management of environmental triggers such as second hand smoke, dust mites and pollution. EPA is committed to educating all Americans about asthma so that everyone knows what asthma is, how the environment can affect asthma patients and how to manage environmental asthma triggers.

Allergies are diseases of the immune system that cause an overreaction to substances called “allergens.” Allergies are grouped by the kind of trigger, time of year or where symptoms appear on the body: indoor and outdoor allergies (also called “hay fever,” “seasonal,” “perennial” or “nasal” allergies), food allergies, latex allergies, insect allergies, skin allergies and eye allergies.

Spokane Allergy holds a monthly clinic in the Three Forks Office Building on the Whitman Hospital campus.

For more information log on to http://www.epa.gov/ asthma or http://www.aafa.org

Debbie Glass, CEO

Whitman Hospital & Medical Center