Multi-disciplinary palliative care is effective in people with symptomatic heart failure: A systematic review and narrative synthesis.

Background: Despite recommendations, people with heart failure have poor access to palliative care.

Aim: To identify the evidence in relation to palliative care for people with symptomatic heart failure.

Design: Systematic review and narrative synthesis.

Clustering of 27,525,663 Death Records from the United States Based on Health Conditions Associated with Death: An Example of big Health Data Exploration.

Background: Insight into health conditions associated with death can inform healthcare policy. We aimed to cluster 27,525,663 deceased people based on the health conditions associated with death to study the associations between the health condition clusters, demographics, the recorded underlying cause and place of death.

Methods: Data from all deaths in the United States registered between 2006 and 2016 from the National Vital Statistics System of the National Center for Health Statistics were analyzed.

Wearable Finger Pulse Oximetry for Continuous Oxygen Saturation Measurements During Daily Home Routines of Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Over One Week: Observational Study.

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients can suffer from low blood oxygen concentrations. Peripheral blood oxygen saturation (SpO), as assessed by pulse oximetry, is commonly measured during the day using a spot check, or continuously during one or two nights to estimate nocturnal desaturation. Sampling at this frequency may overlook natural fluctuations in SpO.

Airflow Obstruction and Cardio-metabolic Comorbidities.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterized by airflow obstruction and often co-exists with cardiovascular disease (CVD), hypertension and diabetes. This international study assessed the association between airflow obstruction and these comorbidities. 23,623 participants (47.

It's more than low BMI: prevalence of cachexia and associated mortality in COPD.

Background: Cachexia is associated with increased mortality risk among chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. However, low body mass index (BMI) as opposed to cachexia is often used, particularly when calculating the BODE (BMI, Obstruction, Dyspnea and Exercise) index. For this reason, we examined mortality using a consensus definition and a weight-loss definition of cachexia among COPD cases and compared two new COPD severity indices with BODE.

Disease-Specific Comorbidity Clusters in COPD and Accelerated Aging.

Background: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often suffer from multiple morbidities, which occur in clusters and are sometimes related to accelerated aging. This study aimed to assess the disease specificity of comorbidity clusters in COPD and their association with a biomarker of accelerated aging as a potential mechanistic factor.

Methods: Body composition, metabolic, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and psychological morbidities were objectively evaluated in 208 COPD patients (age 62 ± 7 years, 58% males, FEV 50 ± 16% predicted) and 200 non-COPD controls (age 61 ± 7 years, 45% males).

Endobronchial valves for severe emphysema.

The results of the randomised controlled trials investigating the bronchoscopic lung volume reduction treatment using endobronchial valves (EBV) are promising, and have led to their inclusion in treatment guidelines, US Food and Drug Administration approval and inclusion in routine care in an increasing number of countries. The one-way valve treatment has advanced and is now a regular treatment option. However, this new phase will lead to new challenges in terms of implementation.

Risk stratification for short-term mortality at hospital admission for acute exacerbations of COPD.

Background And Objective: Exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (ECOPD) are associated with increased in-hospital and short-term mortality. Developing an easy-to-use model to predict adverse outcomes will be useful in daily clinical practice and will facilitate management decisions. We aimed to assess mortality rates and potential predictors for short-term mortality after severe ECOPD.

Organizational aspects of pulmonary rehabilitation in chronic respiratory diseases.

Adult patients with chronic respiratory diseases may suffer from multiple physical (pulmonary and extra-pulmonary), emotional and social features which necessitate a comprehensive, interdisciplinary rehabilitation programme. To date, pulmonary rehabilitation programmes show a lot of variation in setting, content, frequency and duration. Future projects should strive for a standard set of assessment measures to identify patients eligible for pulmonary rehabilitation, taking disease complexity into consideration, which should result in referral to an appropriate rehabilitation setting.

A randomized cross-over trial on the direct effects of oxygen supplementation therapy using different devices on cycle endurance in hypoxemic patients with Interstitial Lung Disease.

Background: In patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD) a cardinal feature is exercise intolerance, often associated with significant dyspnea and severe hypoxemia. Supplemental oxygen therapy may be offered during exercise. The Oxymizer is a nasal cannula with an incorporated reservoir with the potential to deliver higher oxygen doses to the patient.

Treatment of Pain in Cancer: Towards Personalised Medicine.

Despite increased attention to cancer pain, pain prevalence in patients with cancer has not improved over the last decade and one third of cancer patients on anticancer therapy and half of patients with advanced disease still suffer from moderate to severe pain. In this review, we explore the possible reasons for the ongoing high prevalence of cancer pain and discuss possible future directions for improvement in personalised pain management. Among possible reasons for the lack of improvement are: Barriers for patients to discuss pain with clinicians spontaneously; pain measurement instruments are not routinely used in daily practice; limited knowledge concerning the assessment of undertreatment; changes in patients' characteristics, including the ageing of the population; lack of significant improvement in the treatment of neuropathic pain; limitations of pharmacological treatment and lack of evidence-based nonpharmacological treatment strategies.

Fatigue is Highly Prevalent in Patients with Asthma and Contributes to the Burden of Disease.

The 2018 update of the Global Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention does not mention fatigue-related symptoms. Nevertheless, patients with asthma frequently report tiredness, lack of energy, and daytime sleepiness. Quantitative research regarding the prevalence of fatigue in asthmatic patients is lacking.

Cognitive impairment in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: disease burden, determinants and possible future interventions.

: Cognitive impairment (CI) is an important but an under-recognized extra-pulmonary feature of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It is related to the burden of disability, worse health outcomes, and impaired self-management. : CI includes deterioration of a wide range of cognitive functions, such as memory and various executive functions.

COPD patient education and support - Achieving patient-centredness.

Background: The art of medicine is undergoing a dramatic shift in focus, evolving to focus on patient involvement as partners in care, transforming the traditional, prescriptive, reactive practice of healthcare into a proactive discipline. The personal and societal burden of chronic diseases is burgeoning and unsustainable in current systems, novel approaches are required to address this.

Discussion: Although considerable progress has been made in the development of diagnostics, therapeutics and care guidelines for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), questions remain surrounding the implementation of best practice education and support.

Exercise Prescription in Patients with Different Combinations of Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors: A Consensus Statement from the EXPERT Working Group.

Whereas exercise training is key in the management of patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk (obesity, diabetes, dyslipidaemia, hypertension), clinicians experience difficulties in how to optimally prescribe exercise in patients with different CVD risk factors. Therefore, a consensus statement for state-of-the-art exercise prescription in patients with combinations of CVD risk factors as integrated into a digital training and decision support system (the EXercise Prescription in Everyday practice & Rehabilitative Training (EXPERT) tool) needed to be established. EXPERT working group members systematically reviewed the literature for meta-analyses, systematic reviews and/or clinical studies addressing exercise prescriptions in specific CVD risk factors and formulated exercise recommendations (exercise training intensity, frequency, volume and type, session and programme duration) and exercise safety precautions, for obesity, arterial hypertension, type 1 and 2 diabetes, and dyslipidaemia.

Fatigue in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: protocol of the Dutch multicentre, longitudinal, observational study.

Introduction: Fatigue is the second most common symptom in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Despite its high prevalence, fatigue is often ignored in daily practice. For this reason, little is known about the underlying determinants of fatigue in patients with COPD.

Personalised pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD.

This review summarises ongoing developments in personalised medicine and individualised medicine in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Currently applied classification systems largely ignore the complexity and heterogeneity of the COPD syndrome. Personalised medicine has to consider the influence of unique circumstances of the person, which contribute to this heterogeneity and complexity.

Use of high-dose intermittent systemic glucocorticoids and the risk of fracture in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Introduction: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterised by persistent airflow obstruction and respiratory symptoms. While short course systemic GCs are prescribed in patients with acute COPD exacerbations, little is known of the risk of fractures with intermittent exposure to high-dose GC and the effect of proxies of disease severity.

Methods: A case-control study was conducted using the Danish National Hospital Discharge Registry (NHDR) between January 1996 to December 2011.

Chest computed tomography-derived low fat-free mass index and mortality in COPD.

Low fat-free mass index (FFMI) is an independent risk factor for mortality in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) not typically measured during routine care. In the present study, we aimed to derive fat-free mass from the pectoralis muscle area (FFM) and assess whether low FFMI is associated with all-cause mortality in COPD cases. We used data from two independent COPD cohorts, ECLIPSE and COPDGene.