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LungHealthOnline

Asthma Camps Really Do Improve Asthma Management

Children who have asthma deserve to run and play just like their non-asthmatic peers, and at Camp Green Zone in York, PA, they learn how to do just that. Now in its 11th year, the week-long camp sponsored by Wellspan Health is held on the campus of York College and provides all the education children need to cope with their asthma and fit it into an active lifestyle. Wellspan employee Ann Wilson, RRT, RPFT, has been an instructor at the camp since its inception.
Camp Green Zone is a day camp that lasts all week and includes classroom instruction, fitness, arts and crafts, swimming, educational guests from the Baltimore Science Center, and special tobacco education. “Camp includes lunch and snacks daily, a peak flow meter, a spacer, as well as all the educational material and crafts,” says Wilson, a respiratory therapist. “It is helping improve the quality of life for asthmatic kids.”
The 2007 camp took place in June, and Wilson was once again there to teach the youngest campers — those ages six and seven. As she does every year, she came away with many great memories, “My highlight this year was a seven-year-old who was deathly afraid of the pool the first day,” she recalls. Loudly protesting that “I could drown” and “I should have waited to come to camp until I was bigger,” he led his counselors to believe swimming was just not an option. But by the end of the fourth day, Wilson was pleased to see him remove his lifejacket, take a kickboard, and swim around the shallow end of the pool all by himself. “It was truly a metamorphosis… the smile on his face was priceless.”