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Asthma is a frequent cause of absenteeism from school and work, preventing sleep and causes fatigue. Deaths from asthma are relatively few, but severe cases of asthma present a serious impediment to a normal life. The patient with asthma should follow the treatment virtually all life to keep the disease controlled.

To monitor the development of asthma is to undergo regular medical checks, including four basic tests: measurement of peak respiratory capacity, spirometry to monitor the airway obstruction, bronchodilator, which measures the ability to breathe after inhaling a bronchodilator, and methacholine test, noting the bronchial hyperactivity caused by this bronchoconstrictor.

Also common allergy skin tests, which consist of small dose inoculation of potential allergens to test the reaction they have on the patient.

Asthma therapy depends on its severity in each patient, but generally fall into two groups: preventive treatment and rescue. Both are based on inhaled corticosteroids, steroids and bronchodilators.

Preventative asthma treatments are applied once or twice daily, while the rescue are those who are called upon when a crisis occurs. The characteristics of each other based on the severity of the disease.