Patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have a chaotic trajectory towards death. Research has focused on identifying a "transition point" that would allow identification of those patients who may benefit from a palliative approach to their care, or referral to a specialist palliative care service. This article aims to outline difficulties in identifying this transition point, summarise current literature on this topic and suggests a model based on clinical milestones.
To outline the difficulties associated with identifying patients with severe COPD who are at risk of dying.To summarise current research on this topic.
A specific transition point is difficult to identify in severe COPD.Tools are available that may assist the physician in identifying those at risk of dying.It is essential that the patient voice is heard, patients can describe specific events that may be used as a "trigger" for a palliative approach.Specialist palliative care services may only be required for a subgroup of patients whose needs cannot be managed by the primary care team.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 38. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 22 January 2018.
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#1,323,592
of 32,890,663 outputs
Outputs from Breathe
#67
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Outputs of similar age
#22,996
of 481,093 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Breathe
#3
of 17 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,890,663 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 835 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.8. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 481,093 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 17 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 82% of its contemporaries.
