Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
9385716 Respiratory Medicine 2005 8 Pages PDF
Abstract
One-third of patients had never been diagnosed and treated even though 83% of them had moderate-to-very-severe COPD and about 30% already had respiratory failure. Only 20% had received information on the nature of the disease and none had received a written action plan. Only 60% were receiving long-acting bronchodilators and 41% of patients with respiratory failure were receiving long-term oxygen. A substantial number of undiagnosed and untreated patients with moderate-to-very-severe COPD came to our attention through an exacerbation. This enforces the importance of exacerbations as the starting point of pro-active COPD management and of the ED as a valuable sentinel to identify this subset of patients.
Related Topics
Health Sciences Medicine and Dentistry Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine
Authors
, , , , , , , , ,