Irish medical journal
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Irish medical journal · Feb 2001
A critical appraisal of the out-patient fracture clinic: is communication really the key?
The most common factor in an adversarial doctor-patient relationship is failed communication. We audited our communication skills, patient satisfaction and assessed patients' capacity for retaining information. 120 consecutive first time patients with one of 5 fracture types were assessed. Patients scored (a) the doctor's communication skills and (b) their overall fracture clinic experience. ⋯ Doctors scored 9.2 (range 7-10, SD 1.23) points for communication skills. Patients are concerned with a fracture's impact on daily activities, often failing to register who treats them and any serious consequences. With doctors being scored so highly, the dilemma remains of how better to deliver the message.
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Irish medical journal · Feb 2001
Clinical TrialEfficacy of pulmonary rehabilitation in an Irish population.
This study evaluated the results after 8 and 52 weeks of a comprehensive pulmonary rehabilitation programme for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Ireland. 170 patients with clinical and physiological evidence of COPD (mean FEV1 43.1 +/- 17.0%pred.) were recruited into an 8 week programme. At the time of final evaluation 15 patients had died, 25 patients had not been compliant with required attendances and 1 patient had transferred to another programme. To date assessments of 106 of the remaining 129 patients were made after eight weeks and of 78 patients after 1 year. ⋯ Significant improvements in exercise tolerance, (shuttle p<.001, treadmill p<.001), QoL, (BPQ p<.001, CRDQ p<.001, SGHQ p<.001) and dyspnoea (p<.001) were demonstrated after 8 weeks. These improvements were maintained at 1 year. These results suggest that pulmonary rehabilitation can increase exercise tolerance and improve QoL in patients with COPD.