WLS-TV in Chicago reports that Anna Marsland, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh, is using computer biofeedback to help kids learn how to relax during an asthma attack. Biofeedback assisted relaxation teaches children how to calm down. A computer display shows children what their readings look like when they are stressed and when they are relaxed. By learning and practicing what to do to make the readings show a calm response, Dr. Marsland says the children will be better at controlling their bodies during an asthma attack.
‘When a child relaxes, his breathing gets slow and regular, which is the opposite of the early symptoms of an asthma attack,’ says Dr. Marsland.
Four to five million children in the United States have asthma.