Cough

Yardstick for managing cough, part 1: In adults and adolescent patients older than 14 years of age

Nationwide statistics in the United States and Australia reveal that cough of undifferentiated duration is the most common complaint for which patients of all ages seek medical care in the ambulatory setting. Management of chronic cough is one of the most common reasons for new patient visits to pulmonologists. Because symptomatic cough is such a common problem and so much has been learned about how to diagnose and treat cough of all durations but especially chronic cough, this 2-part yardstick has been written to review in a practical way the latest evidence-based guidelines most of which have been developed from recent high quality systematic reviews on how best to manage cough of all durations in adults, adolescents, and children. In this manuscript, part 1 of the 2-part series, we provide evidence-based, and expert opinion recommendations on the management of chronic cough in adult and adolescent patients (>14 years of age).

'Dry' and 'wet' cough: how reliable is parental reporting?

Introduction

Chronic cough in childhood is common and causes much parental anxiety. Eliciting a diagnosis can be difficult as it is a non-specific symptom indicating airways inflammation and this may be due to a variety of aetiologies. A key part of assessment is obtaining an accurate cough history. It has previously been shown that parental reporting of 'wheeze' is frequently inaccurate. This study aimed to determine whether parental reporting of the quality of a child's cough is likely to be accurate.

Methods

Parents of 48 'new' patients presenting to a respiratory clinic with chronic cough were asked to describe the nature of their child's cough. They were then shown video clips of different types of cough using age-appropriate examples, and their initial report was compared with the types of cough chosen from the video.

Results

In a quarter of cases, the parents chose a video clip of a 'dry' or 'wet' cough having given the opposite description. In a further 20% parents chose examples of both 'dry' and 'wet' coughs despite having used only one descriptor.

Discussion

While the characteristics of a child's cough carry important information that may be helpful in reaching a diagnosis, clinicians should interpret parental reporting of the nature of a child's cough with some caution in that one person's 'dry' cough may very well be another person's 'wet' cough.

Soothing Properties of Glycerol in Cough Syrups for Acute Cough Due to Common Cold

The treatment and management of acute cough due to common cold costs billions of dollars of healthcare expenditure and there is a growing opinion that a simple linctus containing glycerol with flavourings such as honey and lemon is a safe and effective treatment for acute cough in children and adults. Glycerol is a component of most cough syrups, and although it is often thought of only as a solvent or thickening agent in cough syrups, it may be a major component for the efficacy of cough syrups due to its special properties of lubrication, demulcency, sweetness, and acting as a humectant. The major benefit of cough syrups in soothing cough is likely due to the properties of the syrup rather than the active ingredients and this review discusses the special properties of glycerol in relation to the treatment of acute cough.

Accuracy of cough reporting by carers of Indigenous children

AIMS

The study aims to determine the reliability of a 24-h history of reported cough presence and quality (wet/dry) compared with objectively recorded cough, and evaluate factors that may influence cough reporting.

METHODS

A digital recorder (ICD-PX720, Sony, Tokyo, Japan) was attached to 47 Indigenous children for 24 h during admission at Royal Darwin Hospital. After recording, carers reported their child's cough details. Cough counts were objectively measured and details of cough reports by carer (cough present/absent, quality wet/dry, cough severity determined by visual analogue scale and verbal category descriptive score) were the main outcomes measured. Other factors examined were: carer's sex, age, education, smoking, carer's cough, parent versus non-parent, respiratory illness in child and mean parent-proxy cough-specific quality of life questionnaire. Data were entered into STATA (V.10, STATA Corp., College Station, TX, USA). Cohen's kappa (κ) coefficients and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (rs ) were used for data analysis.

RESULTS

Reporting of cough by Indigenous carers (compared with cough monitoring) was slight when a low cough threshold (0.25 coughs/h) was used (κ = 0.17, 95% CI -0.15, 0.49) and moderate when a higher cough threshold was used (κ = 0.57, 95% CI 0.28, 0.88). Carers' evaluation of wet cough disagreed with clinician's evaluation (κ = -0.24, 95% CI -0.58, 0.09). Subjective reporting of cough severity moderately correlated with objective cough rates (rs = 0.41 to 0.44, 95% CI 0.11, 0.67). None of the factors examined was associated with reliability of cough reporting.

CONCLUSIONS

The unreliability of reporting of cough highlights the need for community education on the importance of cough to improve health-seeking behaviour for early detection and treatment of respiratory disease.

Pediatric cough: children are not miniature adults

Pediatric cough-related issues, like most other conditions in particularly young children, share similarities but also have substantial important differences with adults. These can be understood from physiologically based domains simplified to (1) cough-specific, (2) general respiratory, (3) other direct systems such as the immune system, and (4) other general physiology. Among other reasons, these result in observed differences in etiology, management, and measurement of response between children and adults. For example, while empirical therapy for chronic cough is widely advocated for adults, it is not advocated for children. Indeed, there is some evidence that an empirical approach is potentially harmful; this is related to the use of medications and the delay in obtaining a correct diagnosis such as missed foreign body aspiration.