No abstract

Combining discrete qualitative studies provided a useful perspective of the experience of living with COPD over the past two decades. Further studies into the ongoing needs of individuals with COPD are unlikely to add to this well-established picture. Future research should focus on solutions through the development of interventions that address patients' ongoing needs.

Frailty is prevalent among patients with advanced symptomatic heart failure referred for heart transplantation and is associated with increased mortality.

Prevalence of breathlessness increases rapidly at life's end, especially for people with primary lung cancer; the levels of breathlessness became close to those experienced by people with noncancer diagnoses despite symptom control measures.

Background Although frailty has been associated with increased risks for hospitalization and mortality in chronic heart failure, the precise average effect remains uncertain. We performed a systematic review and meta‐analysis to summarize the hazards for mortality and incident hospitalization in patients with heart failure and frailty compared with those without frailty and explored the heterogeneity underlying the effect size estimates. Methods and Results MEDLINE , EMBASE, and Cochrane databases were queried for articles published between January 1966 and March 2018. Predefined selection criteria were used. Hazard ratios ( HRs ) were pooled for meta‐analyses, and where odds ratios were used previously, original data were recalculated for HR . Overlapping data were consolidated, and only unique data points were used. Study quality and bias were assessed. Eight studies were included for mortality (2645 patients), and 6 studies were included for incident hospitalization (2541 patients) during a median follow‐up of 1.82 and 1.12 years, respectively. Frailty was significantly associated with an increased hazard for mortality ( HR , 1.54; 95% confidence interval, 1.34–1.75; P <0.001) and incident hospitalization ( HR , 1.56; 95% confidence interval, 1.36–1.78; P <0.001) in chronic heart failure. The Fried phenotype estimated a 16.9% larger effect size than the combined Fried/non‐Fried frailty assessment for the end point of mortality ( HR , 1.80; 95% confidence interval, 1.41–2.28; P <0.001), but not for hospitalization ( HR , 1.57; 95% confidence interval, 1.30–1.89; P <0.001). Study heterogeneity was found to be low (I 2 =0%), and high quality of studies was verified by the Newcastle‐Ottawa scale. Conclusions Overall, the presence of frailty in chronic heart failure is associated with an increased hazard for death and hospitalization by ≈1.5‐fold.

This study shows that a multidisciplinary heart failure cardiac rehabilitation program, including an individualized exercise component, coordinated by a specialist heart failure nurse can substantially reduce both all-cause and cardiovascular readmission rates, improve functional status at 3 months and exercise tolerance.

No abstract

Adapting the 6MWT as a patient-reported outcome measure may enhance the capacity, not only for clinicians to monitor functional status, but also promote self-management by enabling individuals to monitor changes in their functional capacity.