Worldwide, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is one of the most common chronic diseases and currently the fourth leading cause of mortality. The natural course of this progressive disease is interrupted by periods of symptom deterioration called exacerbations. Exacerbations accelerate the …

A hospital visit is often an anxious and uncertain event for patients and their relatives. Patients are often concerned about a diagnosis and/or the treatment of their disease in an outpatient or inpatient setting. In these hospital settings, the impact of the environment on patients is still not well …

De pilot ‘Toekomstige Zorgplanning (TZP) bij patiënten met Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)’ is ingezet om TZP op een meer tijdige, structurele en passende wijze te introduceren en te bespreken met patiënten met COPD en hun naasten, in tegenstelling tot het huidige beleid. Het Centrum Ondersteunende …

Objective: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of the most prevalent autoimmune diseases worldwide. Dietary interventions can be of great value in treatment of RA, since current drug therapies cause many side-effects and work insufficiently in a substantial number of patients. Therefore we aimed to assess …

Chronic diseases represent a significant burden for the society and health systems; addressing this burden is a key goal of the European Union policy. Health and other professionals are expected to deliver behaviour change support to persons with chronic disease. A skill gap in behaviour change support …

The objective of this thesis is to make a first step towards prevention of the progression of chronic venous disease and the development of a first venous leg ulcer in chronic venous disease patients. The aim is to identify chronic venous disease patients at risk of developing more severe clinical stages, …

Background: Older cardiac patients are at high risk of readmission and mortality. Transitional care interventions (TCIs) might contribute to the prevention of adverse outcomes. The Cardiac Care Bridge program was a randomized nurse-coordinated TCI combining case management, disease management and home-based rehabilitation …

Background: after hospitalisation for cardiac disease, older patients are at high risk of readmission and death. Objective: the cardiac care bridge (CCB) transitional care programme evaluated the impact of combining case management, disease management and home-based cardiac rehabilitation (CR) on hospital …

Background: Early identification of older cardiac patients at high risk of readmission or mortality facilitates targeted deployment of preventive interventions. In the Netherlands, the frailty tool of the Dutch Safety Management System (DSMS-tool) consists of (the risk of) delirium, falling, functional …

Objective: To study the effects of a comprehensive secondary prevention programme on weight loss and to identify determinants of weight change in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Methods: We performed a secondary analysis focusing on the subgroup of overweight CAD patients (BMI ≥27 kg/m2) …