Western Carolina University will offer an asthma management workshop for nurses and other interested health care professionals from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 17, in Room 143 of the Cordelia Camp Building.

The session will be led by Gwen Carlton, assistant professor of nursing at WCU and 2006 recipient of the Allied Health Recognition Award from the American Academy of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology.

Carlton also was recognized in 1990 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for her project to increase asthma knowledge in five target groups: patients with asthma, their families, schoolteachers, the community at large and allied health professionals.

“In the United States, about 20 million people have been diagnosed with asthma; nearly 9 million of them are children,” Carlton said. “Proper education and treatment can vastly improve the quality of life for the patient and the patient’s family.”

Carlton will present strategies for establishing partnerships between patients and clinicians to promote improved asthma management.

Participants also will explore the relationship of inflammation to the pathophysiology of asthma and to identify triggers that contribute to asthma severity.
 
Carlton also will address the use of peak flow and asthma symptom monitoring in the development of an asthma action plan.

Nurses will receive a peak flow monitor courtesy of The Asthma and Allergy Foundation.
  
Pre-registration is required. The cost of the workshop is $39. Two hours of nursing continuing education will be awarded for attendance.

Western Carolina University is an approved provider of nursing continuing education by the North Carolina Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

For more information or to register, call (828) 227-7397 or toll free (800) 928-4968, or visit the Web site http://learn.wcu.edu.

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Last Modified: Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2007