John Dickinson 2.14 transcript
The Respiratory Clinic at the University of Kent is a clinic that provides services for athletes with breathing problems. So, we typically see a lot of athletes who have asthmatic issues, so 21% of the Olympic team have an asthmatic issue, but on top of that, we also see a large amount of athletes with breathing problems that aren't related to asthma. So we do a lot of work unpicking what is causing their symptoms. At the Respiratory Clinic, we can offer a variety of services that include assessments for asthma, dysfunctional breathing and we can also tie that in with things like fitness testing such as V02max testing as well. We work with a range of athletes, anywhere from Olympic sports through to professional sports, we also deal with recreational athletes that are keen but are maybe getting held back because of their breathing problems. Recently, we supported the British swimming team getting ready for the Olympic games in Rio and we are currently continuing to support professional teams and the England world cup team getting ready for the Russian world cup. The Clinic and my research go hand in hand together, so all my research  has looked at the prevalence, treatment and diagnosis of athletes with asthma and related conditions such as dysfunctional breathing. So pretty much all my research is along those sort of lines, we have had funding from the World Anti-Doping Agency to investigate how asthma medication may affect performance in athletes with asthma and without asthma. We also have funding from companies such as A2 Milk, interested in how their different types of milk affect asthma and also Asthma UK, trying to find out ways to allow people with asthma to exercise more effectively in provocative environments. So, if people want to use our services we can do two things. If we are working with a big large squad we can actually go out to their venue and test them at their venue. Individual athletes, we can, we have got the facilities at the University of Kent where they can come along to the Clinic, they can self-refer or they can get referred by their GP, and we can book them in for the appropriate test when it's a suitable time for them.