Recovery from community acquired pneumonia: the view from the top of the iceberg

A very common question patients with pneumonia ask is, “When will I be better?” My usual response is a mixture of educated guess and anecdotal experience: “Probably not for 6–8 weeks at least – and it may be longer”, mentally reducing that time frame for younger patients and increasing it for the elderly. Given how fundamentally important this question is for our patients, the study in this issue of the journal by Wootton et al. [1] is particularly welcome. What I am not sure of is whether the study conducted has really answered the question.