Breathing techniques to reduce symptoms in people with serious respiratory illness: a systematic review.

Background: In adults with serious respiratory illness, breathlessness is prevalent and associated with reduced health-related quality of life. The aim of this review was to assess the impact of breathing techniques on breathlessness in adults with serious respiratory illness.

Methods: Electronic databases were searched to identify randomised controlled trials testing breathing techniques (techniques that aim to alter the respiratory pattern, excluding respiratory muscle training) in people with serious respiratory illness.

European Respiratory Society clinical practice guideline on symptom management for adults with serious respiratory illness.

Respiratory symptoms are ubiquitous and impair health-related quality of life in people with respiratory disease. This European Respiratory Society (ERS) task force aimed to provide recommendations for symptomatic treatment in people with serious respiratory illness. The ERS task force comprised 16 members, including representatives of people with serious respiratory illness and informal caregivers.

Health and social care professional standards need to be updated to advance leadership and action for environmental sustainability and planetary health.

Background: Human health is inextricably linked to planetary health. The desire to nurture and protect both concurrently requires the mitigation of healthcare-associated environmental harms and global initiatives that support sustainable lifestyles. Health leadership is important to bring adequate attention and action to address planetary health challenges.

Pragmatic randomised controlled trials in COPD and asthma: how to guide clinical practice.

The use of real-world evidence (RWE) studies, including pragmatic randomised controlled trials (RCTs; randomised RWE studies), to aid the development of treatment guidelines, is gradually becoming a mainstay within clinical practice. RWE is an integral part of patient-driven decision-making and offers important value to add complimentary evidence to traditional RCTs; these provide a more well-rounded view of the benefits to patient-reported outcomes and improve the external validity of a given treatment versus findings from traditional RCTs alone. Discussions in recent scientific workshops explored the importance of pragmatic RCTs in optimising guideline development and patient care in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma.

Discussing treatment burden.

https://bit.ly/2XRtRPK.

Management of medication in patients with Parkinson's disease who are nil-by-mouth.

Parkinson's disease affects approximately 200 in every 100000 patients in London (Schrag et al, 2000). These individuals experience increased rates of emergency admissions to hospital secondary to falls, fractures, impaired mobility, infections, psychiatric disturbances and cardiovascular disease. The duration of their hospital stay is frequently prolonged compared to patients who do not have Parkinson's disease (Woodford and Walker, 2005).