Global Update

Indian Pediatrics 2002; 39:990-991

Pedscapes

Pediatric asthma virtual journal - www.pediatric-asthma.org This website provides a collection of articles on pediatric asthma from the journals published by High wire press, including BMJ and Pediatrics. As of now, the full text of articles are for free access. Articles published from January 2002 are presently available. A search facility and email alert facility have also been provided.

AAAA I : Tips on childhood asthma - www.aaaai.org/patients/publicedmat/tips/childhoodasthma.stm The American association of Allergy and Immunology website on asthma contains a fact sheet on asthma, newsletter, parent education handouts, easy reader sheets on asthma meant for children and links to other asthma resources on the web. (Fig. 1)

Ibreathe.com - http://gsk.ibreathe.com/ibreathe_pages/ Ibreathe site is meant for parents of children with asthma. Various aspects of asthma - warning signs, tips on assessment of severity and asthma and schooling have been included. The information provided is in a simple and easy to understand language.

Pediatric asthma information - http://asthma.about.com/cs/parentscorner/ About.com is a web directory. Their pediatric asthma page has a collection of links to parent education websites on childhood asthma.

Practical Guide - www.asthmainamerica.com/asthmaguide/index.html This is an online practical guide on management of asthma from the National Asthma Prevention and Education program(NIH, USA), which includes a section

on pediatric asthma. Free access to the full text of the document has been allowed. A collection of patient handouts and patient self-assessment forms are also available for download.

No attacks - www.noattacks.org/child.html No attacks, as the name suggests, educates parents about ways to prevent acute attacks, managing the indoor environment and also an asthma management plan.

GINA - www.ginasthma.com/ Global initiative for asthma is a project that has been initiated by the National heart, lung and blood institute of USA.GINA aims to improve awareness, management and reduce asthma related morbidity and mortality. A collection of resources on asthma are available for download from the GINA website.

Overview on childhood asthma from American Lung Association - www.lungusa.org/asthma/ascchildhoo.html This website provides patient education material on various aspects of childhood asthma including trigger factors, and treatment options. Links to other asthma resources on the web have also been listed.

Multimedia Tutorial on asthma - http://galen.med.virginia.edu/~smb4v/tutorials/asthma/asthma1.html This is an online tutorial meant for children with asthma and their parents on the how, why and what of asthma from the children’s medical center of University of Virginia.

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