Hmmm.. does your father see an asthma, or pulminary-lung doctor? Prednisone has awful side effects when youre on it for as long as he's been-bone loss, etc... as my father has taken prednisone in the past and he too is asthmatic, as I am also. Steroid inhalers work wonders (Advair, Symbicort just to name a couple),, and my father is 62 also, and he has been doing a breathing treatment daily for years and years.. I really think your father needs to see another doctor and get another opinion and maybe a new treatment regimene started.
Hope this helps.
He really needs to see another physician. There are a lot of "missing pieces" to this story. For example, "has he ever been on inhaled powdered steroids". Has he ever been on Foradil? Doe he have an electically operated albuterol inhaler? Does he use it? Has every effort been made to make sure he is an antigen free environment? The use of oral doses of prednisone alone to treat asthma was popular during the 1940's, but few modern physicians follow this practice. Use of predisone in such doses over such a period of time dramatically increases the probability of a malignancy.