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Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a pathological entity characterized by a series of persistent physical manifestations such as cough, fatigue, dyspnea and sputum production; symptoms that generate discomfort in the patient from the moment of diagnosis and that, being an irreversible disease due to the tissue damage it causes, progressively has a negative impact on quality of life. On the other hand, the presence of psychological symptoms such as depression, insecurity, anxiety and emotional disturbances has been reported in patients diagnosed with COPD. Likewise, patients with this diagnosis tend to develop behaviors that alter their family and work social relationships, as they tend to isolate themselves due to the symptoms, especially physical. This situation generates the need to develop a research work with the objective of recognizing the cluster of physical, psychological and social symptoms of patients diagnosed with COPD, and to identify if a palliative care approach is proposed. The study was developed through a systematic literature review in which 1,776 articles were identified, of which 41 were evaluated for the identification of the symptom cluster. The binomial dyspnea and cough, fatigue and expectoration were identified as the physical symptom cluster; depression and anxiety constitute the psychological symptom cluster, and the impact on quality of life and the perception of isolation or social exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: pneumonia, named by Sir William Osler "the captain of the hosts of men's death", represents one of the main health problems in the world. Both the incidence and the mortality rate increase with age because in the geriatric patient there are diseases that increase the risk of pneumonia. In addition, due to their own health conditions and immune senescence, the probability of dying from this cause is very high. Objective: to study the main characteristics of pneumonia in the elderly and mainly the increased risk factors for developing it. Methods: a prospective quantitative-qualitative research was carried out in 950 patients aged 60 years or older with a diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia admitted to the "Arnaldo Milián Castro" Hospital, in Villa Clara Province, from January 2016 to December 2018 with the aim of determining the risk factors of community-acquired pneumonia in the elderly. Results: the most frequent clinical manifestations were: fever, cough, decay, tachypnea and tachycardia, in various combinations. Smoking, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchial asthma, heart failure, diabetes mellitus and alcoholism were risk factors. Age was an independent prognostic factor associated with higher mortality, longer hospital stay and longer recovery time. Conclusions: the most frequently found risk factors were smoking, alcoholism, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer, diabetes mellitus and heart failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]