scholarly journals Herbal MedicineCordyceps sinensisImproves Health-Related Quality of Life in Moderate-to-Severe Asthma

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ningqun Wang ◽  
Jie Li ◽  
Xiaobo Huang ◽  
Wenqiang Chen ◽  
Yujing Chen

Moderate-to-severe asthma has a substantial impact on the health-related quality of life (HR-QOL) of the patients.Cordyceps sinensisis a traditional Chinese medicine that is evaluated clinically for the treatment of many diseases, such as chronic allograft nephropathy, diabetic kidney disease, and lung fibrosis. In order to investigate the effects ofCordyceps sinensison patients with moderate-to-severe persistent asthma, 120 subjects were randomized to receive Corbin capsule containingCordyceps sinensisfor 3 months (treatment group,n=60), whereas the control group (n=60) did not receive treatment with Corbin capsule. Inhaled corticosteroid and as-neededβ-agonists were used in the treatment of both groups. HR-QOL was measured with the Juniper’s Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ). The incidence of asthma exacerbation, pulmonary function testing, and serum measurements of inflammatory mediators were also evaluated. The results showed that the treatment group indicated a significant increase in AQLQ scores and lung function compared with the control group. The expression levels of the inflammation markers IgE, ICAM-1, IL-4, and MMP-9 in the serum were decreased and IgG increased in the treatment group compared with the control group. Therefore, the conclusion was reached that a formulation ofCordyceps sinensisimproved the HR-QOL, asthma symptoms, lung function, and inflammatory profile of the patients with moderate-to-severe asthma. This trial is registered withChiCTR-IPC-16008730.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Silke Schibel ◽  
Marie Steinert ◽  
Harald Matthes ◽  
Christian Grah

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Lung cancer is the oncological disease with the highest mortality worldwide. Health-related quality of life is severely compromised in the majority of patients. While the efficacy of early palliative psychosocial therapy has been demonstrated in several recent studies, appropriate therapy modules could so far not be integrated into daily practice of care. Therefore, an additive multimodal treatment concept for oncological centers was drafted: the Additive anthroposophic integrative medicine Cancer Concept of Early supportive or Palliative lung cancer Treatment (ACCEPT®). <b><i>Patients and</i></b> <b><i>Methods:</i></b> The first module consisted of a 3-month health education program, the second module was a concept of psychosocial interventions, and the third module was a supervised home training program. Between 2017 and 2018, 20 lung cancer patients (UICC IIIB/IV) were included and randomly assigned to treatment (<i>n</i> = 10) or a waiting control group (<i>n</i> = 10). The treatment group started ACCEPT® for 3 months immediately after diagnosis and received also standard oncological care (SOC) while the waiting control group received SOC only for 3 months, followed by ACCEPT® after this period. Health-related quality of life, disease management, disease-specific symptoms, and feasibility of the ACCEPT® were monitored at 4 time points. <b><i>Results:</i></b> 7 out of 10 patients in the treatment group (3 dropped out) and 6 out of 10 in the waiting control group (4 died during the intervention) completed treatment. <b><i>Discussion/Conclusion:</i></b> Lung cancer patients with high symptom load may benefit from ACCEPT®. The feasibility of this adjunctive therapy was demonstrated. The combination of SOC and ACCEPT® is feasible and applicable to a heterogeneous patient group and should be further evaluated with respect to efficacy and dosing.


2021 ◽  
pp. 105566562098769
Author(s):  
Mecheala Abbas Ali ◽  
Alwaleed Fadul Nasir ◽  
Shaza K. Abass

Objective: This study compared the oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) among children with a cleft lip with or without a cleft palate (CL±P) and a group of their peers. The reliability of the Arabic version of the Child Oral Health Impact Profile Questionnaire (COHIP) was also assessed. Design: A cross-sectional study. Settings: Cleft clinic in a private dental college in Omdurman City, Sudan. Patients: In all, 75 children (mean age 11.3 ± 2.5 years) with a history of CL±P and a group of 150 school children without CL±P (mean age 11.4 ± 2.6 years). Main Outcome Measures: Overall and subscale scores on the Arabic version of the COHIP. Results: Test–retest reliability of COHIP in Arabic was high with an interclass correlation coefficient >0.8. Cronbach α value internal consistency was 0.8 for the total scale and between 0.7 and 0.8 for the subscales. The COHIP score was 89.41 ± 19.97 in children with CL±P and 122.82 ± 9.45 for the control group. Children with CL±P had significantly lower scores on the overall and all subscales when compared to children without CL±P ( P ≤ .001). Among the children with CL±P, there were no statistically significant differences on the COHIP based on age and/or gender ( P ≥ .05). Conclusions: Children with CL±P had a relatively high OHRQoL, which was lower than that of their peers without CL±P in both the overall scale and all subscales. Gender and age differences had no significant impact on the OHRQoL. The COHIP Arabic version showed appropriate reliability.


2005 ◽  
Vol 39 (9) ◽  
pp. 807-815 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Creed ◽  
Elspeth Guthrie ◽  
Joy Ratcliffe ◽  
Lakshmi Fernandes ◽  
Christine Rigby ◽  
...  

Objective: We have previously reported improved health-related quality of life in patients with severe irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) following psychological treatments. In this paper, we examine whether this improvement was associated with improvement in psychological symptoms and was confined to those patients who had concurrent psychiatric disorder. Method: Two hundred and fifty-seven patients with severe IBS entering a psychological treatment trial were interviewed using the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry. At entry to the trial and 15 months later, patients were also assessed using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, Symptom Cheecklist-90 (SCL-90) and Short Form-36 (SF36) physical component summary score as the main outcome measure. Partial correlation was used to compare changes in SF36 score and changes in psychological scores while controlling for possible confounders, treatment group and baseline scores. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine whether changes in psychological scores, changes in pain and a history of abuse could account for most of the variance of change in SF36 physical component score. Results: Of 257 patients with severe IBS, 107 (42%) had a depressive, panic or generalized anxiety disorder at trial entry. There were moderate but significant correlations (0.21–0.47) between change in the psychological scores and the change in SF36 physical component scores. The correlation coefficients were similar in the groups with and without psychiatric disorder. The superiority of psychotherapy and antidepressant groups over treatment as usual was similar in those with and without psychiatric disorder. Multiple regression found significant independent effects of change in depression, anxiety, somatization and abdominal pain but there was still variance explained by treatment group. Conclusions: In severe IBS improvement in health-related quality of life following psychotherapy or antidepressants is correlated with, but not explained fully by reduction of psychological scores. A more complete understanding of how these treatments help patients with medically unexplained symptoms will enable us to refine them further.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. e000598
Author(s):  
Michael T Durheim ◽  
Anna-Maria Hoffmann-Vold ◽  
Tomas M Eagan ◽  
Arnt-Ove Hovden ◽  
May Brit Lund ◽  
...  

IntroductionIdiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and systemic sclerosis-associated interstitial lung disease (SSc-ILD) are fibrotic ILDs with divergent disease populations. Little is known about health-related quality of life (HRQL) in SSc-ILD relative to IPF.MethodsWe used the Kings Brief Interstitial Lung Disease Questionnaire (K-BILD) to compare HRQL in a cross-sectional study of 57 patients with IPF and 29 patients with SSc-ILD. Analysis of covariance was used to adjust for age, gender and lung function.ResultsThe unadjusted mean K-BILD score was 63.1 (95% CI 57.1 to 69.1) among patients with SSc-ILD, as compared with 54.7 (51.8–57.5) among those with IPF (p=0.005). However, this difference in HRQL was attenuated after adjustment for age, gender and lung function. In a multivariable model, only forced vital capacity was associated with K-BILD scores. K-BILD scores were correlated with both forced vital capacity and with other relevant HRQL measures, regardless of ILD diagnosis.DiscussionPatients with SSc-ILD may have better ILD-specific quality of life than patients with IPF, but this difference appears to be driven primarily by better lung function. These results underscore the impact of lung function on HRQL in fibrotic ILD and the utility of K-BILD to assess HRQL in SSc-ILD.


2020 ◽  
Vol 162 ◽  
pp. 105870 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph W. Lanario ◽  
Michael E. Hyland ◽  
Yinghui Wei ◽  
Rupert C. Jones ◽  
Matthew Masoli

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 111-117
Author(s):  
Tahereh Haji Seyed Javadi ◽  
Najmeh Aghareb Parast ◽  
Sahar Shahsavani ◽  
Mir Javad Chehraghi ◽  
Leila Razavi ◽  
...  

Background: Considering the prevalence of migraine and its detrimental effects on functioning, physical health, and quality of life as well as its psychosocial and social risks. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction treatment with treatment based on acceptance and commitment to the severity of pain and health-related quality of life in migraine patients. Methods: In this study, a semi-experimental design used with pre-test, post-test, a 3-month follow-up, and a control group. Using purposive sampling and considering the inclusion criteria, 45 patients with migraine diagnosis selected from among those referring to the neurology department of Imam Hossein hospital in Tehran. They were then randomly assigned to two experimental groups and a control group. The first experimental group received group therapy based on mindfulness (n = 15; 90-minute sessions), the second experimental group received acceptance and commitment based intervention (n = 15; 90-minute sessions), and the control group (n = 15) received no intervention. All subjects responded to pain intensity and health-related quality of life questionnaires before the intervention (pre-test), after the intervention (post-test), and 3 months after the intervention (follow-up). One-way ANOVA analyzed the collected data. Results: The findings showed that mean scores for the 2 experimental groups were significantly different from the control group in the post-test and follow-up phases in terms of severity of pain and health-related quality of life, while the mean scores for the two experimental groups did not differ significantly. The results emphasize the importance of these interventions for chronic diseases and offer new horizons in clinical interventions. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy could positively affect the severity of pain and health-related quality of life in migraine patients, and any of them can be used to improve the variables mentioned above.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillen Nozibuyiso Maqhuzu ◽  
Boglarka L. Szentes ◽  
Michael Kreuter ◽  
Thomas Bahmer ◽  
Nicolas Kahn ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Health-related quality of life (HRQL) in interstitial lung disease (ILD) patients is impaired. We aimed to identify baseline predictors for HRQL decline within a 12-month observation period. Methods We analyzed 194 ILD patients from two German ILD-centers in the observational HILDA study. We employed the disease-specific King’s Brief Interstitial Lung Disease questionnaire (K-BILD) with the subdomains ‘psychological impact’, ‘chest symptoms’ and ‘breathlessness and activities’, and the generic EQ-5D Visual Analog Scale (VAS). We evaluated how many patients experienced a clinically meaningful decline in HRQL. Subsequently, we investigated medical and sociodemographic factors as potential predictors of HRQL deterioration. Results Within the study population (34.0% male, Ø age 61.7) mean HRQL scores hardly changed between baseline and follow up (K-BILD: 52.8 vs. 52.5 | VAS: 60.0 vs. 57.3). On the intra-individual level, 30.4% (n = 59) experienced a clinically relevant deterioration in K-BILD total score and 35.4% (n = 68) in VAS. Lower baseline forced vital capacity (FVC) % predicted determined HRQL decline in K-BILD total score (ß-coefficient: − 0.02, p = 0.007), VAS (ß-coefficient: − 0.03, p < 0.0001), and in the subdomain ‘psychological impact’ (ß-coefficient: − 0.02, p = 0.014). Lower baseline diffusing capacity of carbon monoxide (DLCO) % predicted determined deterioration in ‘breathlessness and activities’ (ß-coefficient: − 0.04, p = 0.003) and ‘chest symptoms’ (ß-coefficient: − 0.04, p = 0.002). Additionally, increasing age predicted decline in ‘psychological impact’ (ß-coefficient: 0.06, p < 0.007). Conclusion Around a third of ILD patients experienced a clinically relevant HRQL deterioration in a 12-month period, which was associated with baseline lung function values in all K-BILD domains. As lung function values are time-dependent variables with possible improvements, in contrast to age and ILD subtype, it, thus, seems important to improve lung function and prevent its decline in order to maintain HRQL on the possibly highest level.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. van Eck van der Sluijs ◽  
◽  
A. A. Bonenkamp ◽  
F. W. Dekker ◽  
A. C. Abrahams ◽  
...  

Abstract Background More than 6200 End Stage Renal Disease patients in the Netherlands are dependent on dialysis, either performed at home or in a dialysis centre. Visiting a dialysis centre three times a week is considered a large burden by many patients. However, recent data regarding the effects of dialysis at home on quality of life, clinical outcomes, and costs compared with in-centre haemodialysis are lacking. Methods The Dutch nOcturnal and hoME dialysis Study To Improve Clinical Outcomes (DOMESTICO) is a nationwide, prospective, observational cohort study that will include adult patients starting with a form of dialysis. Health-related quality of life, as the primary outcome, clinical outcomes and costs, as secondary outcomes, will be measured every 3–6 months in patients on home dialysis, and compared with a control group consisting of in-centre haemodialysis patients. During a 3-year period 800 home dialysis patients (600 peritoneal dialysis and 200 home haemodialysis patients) and a comparison group of 800 in-centre haemodialysis patients will be included from 53 Dutch dialysis centres (covering 96% of Dutch centres) and 1 Belgian dialysis centre (covering 4% of Flemish centres). Discussion DOMESTICO will prospectively investigate the effect of home dialysis therapies on health-related quality of life, clinical outcomes and costs, in comparison with in-centre haemodialysis. The findings of this study are expected to ameliorate the shared decision-making process and give more guidance to healthcare professionals, in particular to assess which type of patients may benefit most from home dialysis. Trial registration The DOMESTICO study is registered with the National Trial Register on (number: NL6519, date of registration: 22 August 2017) and the Central Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (CCMO) (number: NL63277.029.17).


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