News From Annals Of Internal Medicine, 15 Dec, 2008

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Also Included In: Rehabilitation / Physical Therapy;  COPD
Article Date: 18 Dec 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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Family Members Want Straight Talk from Physicians Regarding Poor Patient Prognosis

When a patient is incapacitated by serious illness, family members become surrogate decision makers. However, physicians may feel reluctant to discuss a particularly poor prognosis with surrogates for fear that it could extinguish all sense of hope. Researchers conducted face-to-face interviews with 179 family members of seriously ill patients to determine their opinions about balancing hope and telling the truth about a poor prognosis. Nearly all of the surrogates said that withholding bad news was not acceptable. They felt that knowing the truth was important because it gave them an opportunity to prepare emotionally and practically for a loved one's death.

Home Rehabilitation is a Safe, Viable Option for COPD Patients

COPD is a progressive disease that causes debilitating shortness of breath. Exercise training can reduce shortness of breath, even in severe COPD. While hospitals have programs that provide closely supervised exercise training, access to these programs is limited. Researchers conducted a study of 252 COPD patients to find out if a home-based, largely unsupervised exercise program could be as effective as a hospital-based program. All patients had four weeks of education about living with COPD before being randomly assigned to either hospital or home rehabilitation. In both programs, patients were instructed to perform three exercise sessions per week for eight weeks. During the eight weeks, trainers called home exercisers weekly to provide encouragement. After eight weeks, trainers called once every two months. At one year, patients in both groups reaped equal benefits, with both reporting less shortness of breath than before. Researchers conclude that tailoring pulmonary rehabilitation to meet individual needs could improve accessibility to this effective intervention.

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About the American College of Physicians and Annals of Internal Medicine

Annals of Internal Medicine (http://www.annals.org) is one of the five most widely cited peer-reviewed medical journals in the world. The journal has been published for 81 years and accepts only 7 percent of the original research studies submitted for publication. Annals of Internal Medicine is published by the American College of Physicians (http://www.acponline.org/), the largest medical specialty organization and the second-largest physician group in the United States. ACP members include 126,000 internal medicine physicians (internists), related subspecialists, and medical students. Internists specialize in the prevention, detection, and treatment of illness in adults.

Source: Angela Collom
American College of Physicians

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