Adherence to Conventional Asthma Medication Regimen in the Setting of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Usage

Previous articles in our journal and others have described the increased use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use in children, especially those with underlying chronic diseases like asthma. Assuming this practice is becoming more prevalent, does it mean our patients will use the conventional therapies we recommend less often or comply less with those therapies? To help answer that question, Philp et al. (doi: 10.1542/peds.2011-2467) report on the effect of CAM on adherence to daily asthma medications in an article being early-released this week online. Using a retrospective cohort design, the authors find that rather than competing with more traditional therapies, the two seem to complement each other without affecting adherence to traditional medications. As long as the CAM agent and conventional medications do not interfere with each other, this study may reassure you and those families who wish to try a CAM therapy in addition to their prescription medications. You and your patients will breathe more easily after reading this interesting study.