1. Development and evaluation of a community respiratory physiotherapy service for children with severe neurodisability
- Author
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Hayley Griffin, William P Whitehouse, Antonia Wolff, Moira Flanigan, Sarah Everest, and David Thomas
- Subjects
Pediatrics ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Respiratory tract infections ,BMJ Quality Improvement Programme ,business.industry ,General Medicine ,medicine.disease ,Recurrent lower respiratory tract infection ,Cerebral palsy ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,medicine ,Neurodisability ,Respiratory system ,Respiratory physiotherapy ,business ,Severe disability ,Respiratory tract - Abstract
Children with severe disability often have difficulties with secretion clearance leading to recurrent lower respiratory tract infections and prolonged hospital admissions. A community respiratory physiotherapy service was developed for this client group, including a rapid response for acute respiratory illness, and an evaluation was undertaken, comparing admissions and bed-days in hospital for respiratory tract infections, emergency admissions to hospital for any cause, and admission costs for each child for the 12 months before to the 12 months with the service. Thirty-four children aged 1 to 19 years (median 5) were eligible for the "before and after" evaluation at 28 months; most had severe cerebral palsy 22 (65%), and there were also eight (23%) children with neurodegenerative and four (12%) with neuromuscular conditions. Admissions for respiratory tract infection fell from 43 to 25 (p
- Published
- 2015