Blunted perception of dyspnea in asthmatic children: A potential misleading criterion.

Dyspnea (or breathlessness) is a symptom describing a perceived experience of breathing discomfort. Children's awareness of dyspnea is variable and there is only a poor correlation between the objective respiratory distress measurements and the subjectively awareness of dyspnea. Those who do not perceive dyspnea may not be motivated to comply with their daily prophylactic treatment. Since dyspnea is the main symptom of asthma, and disease management is based largely on the description of symptoms between clinic visits, unreliable symptom report may mislead decision-making for long-term treatment of asthma. Thus, therapeutic decisions should not be taken solely on patients' perception and description of dyspnea.