AE-C study guide
AE-C · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The AE-C (Certified Asthma Educator) credential is a specialty certification for health professionals who teach people with asthma - and their families - how to manage the disease day to day. Nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, nurse practitioners, and community health workers typically pursue it when a meaningful share of their work involves asthma education, inhaler and spacer teaching, spirometry review, and trigger counseling. The AE-C study guide has 5 sections and about 1,814 words.
01Assessment and Monitoring of Asthma
Assessment runs on two tracks that questions love to blur: impairment (daytime symptoms, nighttime awakenings, SABA use, activity limitation, validated questionnaires) and risk (exacerbations, accelerating loss of lung function, SABA overuse, oral steroid courses, ED visits, ICU history). Severity is classified before treatment begins; control is classified while on treatment.
302 words, about 2 min02Patient and Family Education and Counseling
Education is a behavior-change intervention, not a handout. Know health literacy (plain language at roughly a 5th-6th grade level; screen by asking about confidence filling out forms), teach-back (the learner explains or demonstrates in their own words), motivational interviewing (open questions, affirmations, reflections, summaries; roll with resistance instead of arguing), stages of change (precontemplation through maintenance), self-efficacy , and shared decision-making .
293 words, about 1 min03Environmental Control and Trigger Management
Trigger management means matching an intervention to a documented exposure or sensitization: tobacco and other smoke, dust mites, cockroach and rodent allergen, molds and moisture, pets, pollen, outdoor ozone and PM2.5, cold air and exercise, occupational agents, and irritants such as fragrances, cleaning products, and VOCs. Also nitrogen dioxide from unvented gas stoves and wood smoke.
289 words, about 1 min04Pharmacologic Management and Device Technique
Controllers reduce inflammation and are taken daily: inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are the most effective long-term controller; ICS-LABA combinations; leukotriene receptor antagonists (montelukast carries a boxed warning for neuropsychiatric events); LAMA (tiotropium, age 6 and older); biologics (omalizumab, mepolizumab, benralizumab, dupilumab, tezepelumab) for severe allergic or eosinophilic phenotypes; theophylline rarely. Relievers are SABA or, in a SMART/MART regimen, low-dose ICS-formoterol used for both maintenance and relief.
304 words, about 2 min05Care Coordination, Action Plans, and Follow-up
Care coordination deliberately links patient, family, primary care, specialist, school, pharmacy, payer, and community resources across settings. Know the roles: asthma care coordinator or case manager, community health worker, school nurse, pharmacist.
626 words, about 3 min