Pulmonary rehabilitation relieves dyspnoea and fatigue, improves emotional function and enhances the sense of control that individuals have over their condition. These improvements are moderately large and clinically significant. Rehabilitation serves as an important component of the management of COPD and is beneficial in improving health-related quality of life and exercise capacity. It is our opinion that additional RCTs comparing pulmonary rehabilitation and conventional care in COPD are not warranted. Future research studies should focus on identifying which components of pulmonary rehabilitation are essential, its ideal length and location, the degree of supervision and intensity of training required and how long treatment effects persist. This endeavour is important in the light of the new subgroup analysis, which showed a difference in treatment effect on the CRQ between hospital-based and community-based programmes but no difference between exercise only and more complex pulmonary rehabilitation programmes.

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It is essential to understand the experience of living with dementia from the perspective of the person with dementia so that services can be appropriately constructed. This review paper, drawing on prior work, identifies key strategies for the meaningful inclusion of persons with dementia within qualitative research studies, it examines the articulation of these strategies and shares how these strategies were operationalised within one national research study in Ireland. Strategies within the literature were categorised and then synthesized into a guide consisting of four main areas; gaining COnsent, maximizing Responses, Telling the story, and Ending on a high (CORTE). The CORTE guideline was used to as a tool for analysing relevant research reports. CORTE is a synthesized account of grouped strategies that could be used to maximize the meaningful involvement of persons with dementia and can also provide a guide for reporting the strategies used so that researchers can learn from each other.

This review has identified key issues in the care of people with dementia in the acute setting: improving pathways of care, creating suitable environments, addressing resources and staffing levels and placing emphasis on the education for staff caring for people with dementia. Recommendations are made for practice consideration, policy development and future research. Leadership is required to instil the values needed to care for this client group in an effective and personcentred way. Qualitative evidence synthesis can inform policy and in this case, recommends VIPS as a suitable framework for guiding decisions around care for people with dementia in acute settings.

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