Background: The suboptimal use of inhalers in the treatment of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is probably a major but poorly documented problem in hospitalized patients. We aimed to describe the prevalence of misused inhalers among patients hospitalized with COPD in a department of general internal medicine.
Methods: We conducted a monocentric cross-sectional study in consecutive patients with a diagnosis of COPD and hospitalized between August 2022 and April 2023 in the internal medicine division of Fribourg Hospital, Switzerland.
Thermal regimes of aquatic ecosystems are predicted to change as climate warming progresses over the next century, with high-latitude and high-elevation regions predicted to be particularly impacted. Here, we have modelled alpine stream water temperatures from air temperature data and used future predicted air temperature trajectories (representative concentration pathway [rcp] 4.5 and 8.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn rural sub-Saharan Africa, knowledge of non-communicable diseases such as high blood pressure (BP) is rather limited. This report provides information about a BP screening in Mata Sector, a rural region in Southern Province of Rwanda. Community-based, house-to-house screening was performed between February and July 2020 on more than 7000 inhabitants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims Of The Study: Misuse of inhalers during chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) treatment is common and may result from errors in inhalation technique or insufficient peak inspiratory flow (PIF). We aimed to evaluate the impact of an in-hospital intervention to reduce inhaler misuse at hospital discharge among patients with COPD.
Methods: We conducted a monocentric, non-randomised intervention study to compare the proportion of misused inhalers at hospital discharge by patients with COPD between a group with standard care and a group receiving an in-hospital intervention.