To come up with a standard guideline for physicians to manage asthma, asthma experts nationwide have classified the breathing problem into various categories. This was necessary because the severity and manifestation of asthma often vary widely in different individuals. No single treatment plan is right for everyone. Doctors must tailor a patient's management plan and treatment goals based on the individual's needs and lifestyle.

Exercise-Induced Asthma

Children with exercise-induced asthma only have breathing trouble when they are engaged in strenuous activity. They do not have nighttime coughing or prolonged coughing spells when they catch a cold. This form of asthma is arguably the mildest, but it still has the potential of causing severe breathing problems.

Since this pattern of asthma attack is more or less predictable, it can be most easily managed, if the parents and child understand when to use the medication and when to seek help from medical professionals. Most of these children do not need a daily maintenance dose of asthma medication, but exceptions are common based on individual needs.

Cough-Variant Asthma

Children suffering from cough-variant asthma do not necessarily wheeze when they have an asthma attack. Instead, they have a nagging cough that is often dry and forceful. Unlike a cough that can be triggered in anyone with a cold, a cough in a child with cough-variant asthma can last for more than a month. Besides being chronic, this asthma-related cough is often worse at night. During the day the child might not cough at all.

It is not always easy to distinguish cough-variant asthma from a cough triggered by a cold or bronchiolitis. Your child's pediatrician might try a brief course of asthma medication to make this distinction more clear.

Intermittent or Persistent

Asthma experts classify the severity of asthma according to how often symptoms manifest themselves. Children with mild asthma have symptoms no more than twice a month, but children with more severe asthma may experience cough or trouble breathing weekly or even daily.

Whether your child has chronic asthma or just mild occasional asthma needs to be determined by your child's pediatrician. There are many factors to be considered when making this decision, including how often your child coughs at night and whether your child suffers from breathing problems during increased activities. Your child's doctor will ask you these questions to determine whether long-acting medications need to be part of the asthma management regime. (These asthma medications are discussed at length on pages 206–210.)