Irish journal of medical science
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Ireland has the highest rates of overnight hospitalisations for COPD in the OECD, yet lacks estimates of the prevalence of this disease or its pharmacological management. We aimed to estimate the age and sex-specific prevalence of symptomatic COPD and to identify patterns of respiratory medication use to inform interventions to improve pharmacotherapy in this condition. ⋯ The prevalence of medication use consistent with the management of symptomatic COPD mirrors international prevalence estimates. Several patterns raise concern: high ICS use in older adults, under use of LAMA therapy and poor persistence of those newly initiated. We recommend the development of an intervention to assist in the implementation of new national prescribing guidelines for the management of COPD.
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Pain can be considered an early sign of COVID-19 infection. There are no studies that specifically investigate the frequency, characteristics, and presentation patterns of pain in COVID-19 infection. ⋯ The most common pain symptoms were myalgia/arthralgia and headache (69.17% and 50.37%) and found to be much higher than previously reported. Pain is one of the most common complaints of admission to the hospital in patients with COVID-19. Patients who apply to health institutions with pain complaints should be evaluated and questioned in suspicion of COVID-19 infection.
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Internet of Things is a fast growing technology and a network of devices in which everything (smart objects or smart devices) are associated to the internet for effective exchange of information between these connected objects. Internet of Things (IoT) serves as a method for healthcare and acts as an essential part in broad range of real-time healthcare monitoring applications. Previous work shows networked sensor devices, either equipped on the body or embedded inside living being or a camera, make possible in gathering real-time information to evaluate physical and mental health state of the patient by collecting body temperature, blood pressure, patient's image, etc. ⋯ The proposed scheme requires implementation with the authentication protocol. It is important to satisfy the major parameters of security: confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and access control. In this paper our focus is on the authentication of devices.
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This study highlights the multiple sources of delay along a hip fracture clinical pathway. The national recommendation is that 'patients with a hip fracture should be admitted within 4 hours of arrival at the Emergency Department to which they first presented'. ⋯ We identified numerous sources of delay, occurring at every point along the pathway, emphasising the complexity of providing acute integrated care. There was no single stage that persistently contributed to the delay in the patient pathway. The focus is now to achieve marginal gains in each area. Increased staff and resources to the front line are a clear solution but this is complex to achieve.