Asthma is the most common of chronic diseases for children, and continues to be a leading cause of school absences and hospitalizations here in New York and across the country. But as NY1 Health & Fitness reporter Kafi Drexel explains, turning them on to a love of music may soon have them making more frequent trips to the concert hall instead of the emergency room.

Some students at Public School 146 may be getting turned on to a love of music, but it is also helping with something else; all suffer from asthma.

So in addition to inhalers, researchers and therapists out of Beth Israel Medical Center's Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine are hoping recorders and a little bit of drumming might also help.

“We are using music therapy practices to study the quality of life aspects of kids with asthma,” said Brian Harris, a music therapist. “[We are studying] kids and teens with asthma from ages seven - 18.”

The study was recently introduced into some New York City schools. Called the Asthma Initiative Program, it uses wind instruments, and music-assisted relaxation and breathing exercises to go along with medical treatment.

Dr. Stephan Quintzel says some of the benefits are already proven.

“One [benefit] is control of breathing," said Quintzel. "In an illness where they often feel out of control, their inability to control their breath, these activities give them a focal way, and one with positive returns, with rewards with the music that comes out from the other end of the instrument.”

The school principal at P.S. 146 hopes the music therapy program will make a lasting difference at her school and others around the city.

“There are children who don't come to school because of having asthma and they are not able to be in school,” said principal Anna Allanbrook.
"There are children who go outside to the yard to play and have to go inside because they've had an asthma attack."

A few of the kids say the program is already helping them learn new ways to manage their asthma. Just ask second grader Fatima Elbaghir and her older brother Ramy.

“I like doing the recorder because it helps me breathe when it's hard for me to breathe,” said Fatima. “Like, I start coughing and it just helps me when I take deep breaths and then it helps me with my coughing.”

“Every two summers we go to Africa and the ground and the curtains have a lot of dust, so usually we start coughing there, and when I start playing the recorder it just helps me breather better,” said Ramy.

They are learning all the right notes to breathing easier.

Participation in the Asthma Initiative Program is free and comes with free instruments and medical care.