Patients meeting March 2018

Date	Speaker	Title
March 2017	Rachel and Beth	Report on 8th Advances Against Aspergillosis meeting in Lisbon, Portugal
	Chris Harris	How do we address the subject/when do we start talking about ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ with our patients?
	Graham Atherton	Dampness and mould hypersensitivity syndrome
		Click here to view entire meeting/alternate version/Video on Youtube

This month was intended to begin our new series of meetings based around research involvement of all patients with the Biomedical Research Centre – Manchester (BRC) that is funding some of the research we do at the National Aspergillosis Centre. This research is carried out with part of the £29 million 5 year grant made available to several Manchester health research centres in 2016. Unfortunately we have had to postpone this meeting, which we hope will become a regular event 3 times per year. This series of meetings will hopefully begin at our meeting in April.

Instead we had had NAC Science & Medical Comms Team report back on what activities were carried out at the 8th AAA last month (and will report further on some of the hundreds of new research developments that were described at that event).

NAC, like many other NHS units looking after patients who can become critically ill, has to consider when is the best time to approach a patient and their family about what the patients wants if they become seriously ill and require cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). CPR is potentially lifesaving but can be a very robust procedure that can damage the chest of the recipient if they are elderly or frail  in some way and it is common to give some patients an option on whether or not to receive CPR when doctors consider that the cost to the patient outweighs the possible benefit. There is clearly a time when asking a patient to make the decision on whether or not they wish to receive CPR is appropriate, but particularly in the case of aspergillosis patients when is the best time and how should it be done? Chris Harris leads the discussion.

Illness due to living in a damp home is a common complaint and aspergillosis patients can be especially vulnerable. Graham Atherton talks about a recent research paper that tries to understand the range of symptoms ​ thought to be due to exposure to damp & mould in the home and to classify them into a useful progression of symptoms. Dampness and Mould Hypersensitivity Syndrome incudes progression to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) and can be reversed if caught in time.

Resources mentioned:

WORLD ASPERGILLOSIS DAY 2018

8th Advances Against Aspergillosis, Lisbon, Portugal.

National Aspergillosis Centre, Manchester, UK

​Clinical Diagnosis of the Dampness and Mold Hypersensitivity Syndrome: Review of the Literature and Suggested Diagnostic Criteria.