Rhee Hyekyun, Katchamat Nattasit
School of Nursing, University of Texas at Austin, 1710 Red River St., Austin, TX 78712, USA.
Ramathibodi School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University, 270, Rama 6, Rachathewi, Bangkok 10400, Thailand.
Children (Basel). 2025 Jul 29;12(8):997. doi: 10.3390/children12080997.
Asthma is the leading chronic condition in children and adolescents, requiring continuous monitoring to effectively prevent and manage symptoms. Symptom monitoring can guide timely and effective self-management actions by children and their parents and inform treatment decisions by healthcare providers. This paper examines two conventional monitoring methods, including symptom-based and peak expiratory flow (PEF) monitoring, reviews early efforts to quantify respiratory symptoms, and introduces an emerging sensor-based mHealth approach. Although symptom-based monitoring is commonly used in clinical practice, its adequacy is a concern due to its subjective nature, as it primarily relies on individual perception. PEF monitoring, while objective, has shown weak correlations with actual asthma activity or lung function and suffers from suboptimal adherence among youth. To enhance objectivity in symptom monitoring, earlier efforts focused on quantifying respiratory symptoms by harnessing mechanical equipment. However, the practicality of these methods for daily use is limited due to the equipment's bulkiness and the time- and labor-intensive nature of data processing and interpretation. As an innovative alternative, sensor-based mHealth devices have emerged to provide automatic, objective, and continuous monitoring of respiratory symptoms. These wearable technologies offer promising potential to overcome the issues of perceptual inaccuracy and poor adherence associated with conventional methods. However, many of these devices are still in developmental or testing phases, with limited data on their clinical efficacy, usability, and long-term impact on self-management behaviors. Future research and robust clinical trials are warranted to establish their role in asthma monitoring and management and improving asthma outcomes in children and adolescents.
哮喘是儿童和青少年中最主要的慢性疾病，需要持续监测以有效预防和控制症状。症状监测可以指导儿童及其家长及时有效地进行自我管理，并为医疗服务提供者的治疗决策提供依据。本文探讨了两种传统的监测方法，包括基于症状的监测和呼气峰值流速（PEF）监测，回顾了早期量化呼吸道症状的努力，并介绍了一种新兴的基于传感器的移动健康方法。虽然基于症状的监测在临床实践中常用，但其充分性令人担忧，因为其主观性较强，主要依赖个体感知。PEF监测虽然客观，但与实际哮喘活动或肺功能的相关性较弱，且青少年的依从性欠佳。为提高症状监测的客观性，早期的努力集中在利用机械设备量化呼吸道症状。然而，由于设备体积庞大以及数据处理和解读耗时费力，这些方法在日常使用中的实用性有限。作为一种创新的替代方法，基于传感器的移动健康设备已出现，可对呼吸道症状进行自动、客观和持续的监测。这些可穿戴技术有望克服与传统方法相关的感知不准确和依从性差的问题。然而，许多此类设备仍处于开发或测试阶段，关于其临床疗效、可用性以及对自我管理行为的长期影响的数据有限。未来有必要进行研究和开展有力的临床试验，以确定它们在哮喘监测和管理中的作用，以及改善儿童和青少年的哮喘治疗效果。
