Training improves the handling of inhaler devices and reduces the severity of symptoms in geriatric patients suffering f
- PDF / 707,157 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 2 Downloads / 160 Views
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Training improves the handling of inhaler devices and reduces the severity of symptoms in geriatric patients suffering from chronic-obstructive pulmonary disease Marie-Christine Luley1,2†, Tobias Loleit1†, Elmar Knopf1, Marija Djukic1,2, Carl-Peter Criée3† and Roland Nau1,2*†
Abstract Purpose: Elderly patients with impaired vision, cognitive decline or motor/sensory disturbances of their fingers suffering from chronic-obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) encounter difficulties in handling inhaler devices used as the cornerstones of treatment of pulmonary obstruction. Many elderly patients make severe mistakes which impede adequate drug delivery to the bronchioles. This multimodal training program was designed to reduce the number of handling mistakes of inhaler devices. Methods: From October 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017, a prospective intervention study was conducted in 38 inpatients > 65 years (median age 79 years) with previously diagnosed COPD. The effect of an 8-day intervention comprising daily counselling and video demonstration according to the recommendations of the German Airway League on the frequency of mistakes during handling of inhaler devices, the forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), the forced vital capacity (FVC) and the perception of symptoms (COPD Assessment Test, CAT) were studied. Measurements on days 1 and 8 were compared by Wilcoxon signed rank test. Results: The number of handling mistakes per patient decreased as a consequence of the intervention from 3.0 (0– 7) to 0.5 (0–6) [median (minimum-maximum; p < 0.0001)]. The CAT Score decreased from 19.5 (14/24) to 14.5 (10.75/21) [median (25./75. percentile; p < 0.0001) indicating a substantial reduction of clinical symptoms. Conversely, FEV1 and FVC only slightly increased (difference statistically not significant). At study entry, the number of handling mistakes was inversely correlated with the Mini Mental Status Test (MMST) score (p = 0.01). The reduction of the number of handling mistakes during the intervention was not correlated with the MMST. (Continued on next page)
* Correspondence: [email protected] † Marie-Christine Luley, Tobias Loleit, Carl-Peter Criée and Roland Nau contributed equally to this work. 1 Department of Geriatrics, Protestant Hospital Göttingen-Weende, An der Lutter 24, 37075 Göttingen, Germany 2 Institute of Neuropathology, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the mat
Data Loading...
