Palliative medicine
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2013
ReviewAged parents' experiences during a critical illness trajectory and after the death of an adult child: a review of the literature.
Given the growing life expectancy, the likelihood increases that health-care providers are confronted with older people having an adult child with a life-limiting disease. ⋯ There is a need for more in-depth research to understand the lived experience of these parents and what health-care providers can do to assist them.
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2013
ReviewTools to measure quality of life and carer burden in informal carers of heart failure patients: a narrative review.
Heart failure is a complex cardiac syndrome prevalent in an older population. Caring for heart failure patients through the disease trajectory presents physical and emotional challenges for informal carers. Carers have to deal with clinically unstable patients, the responsibility of managing and titrating medication according to symptoms and frequent admissions to acute care. These challenges compound the demands on caregivers' physical and psychosocial well-being. Alongside the negative impact of being a carer, positive aspects have also been demonstrated; carers describe feelings of shared responsibility of caring with professional carers and the reward of supporting a loved one, which creates a new role in their relationship. ⋯ This review highlights evidence that informal carers supporting patients with heart failure face many challenges impacting their physical and mental well-being. The studies described provide an insight into the individual dimensions that make a carer particularly vulnerable, namely, younger carers, female carers and carers with existing physical and emotional health issues. Additionally, there are external influences that increase risk of burden, including New York Heart Association Score status of the patient, if the patient has had recurrent emergency admissions or has recently been discharged home and the level of social support available to the carer. A further finding from conducting this review is that there are still limited measures of the positive aspects of caregiving.
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2013
A multicenter survey of Hispanic caregiver preferences for patient decision control in the United States and Latin America.
Understanding family caregivers' decisional role preferences is important for communication, quality of care, and patient and family satisfaction. The family caregiver has an important role in a patient's decisional role preferences. There are limited studies on family caregivers' preferences of the patient's decision control at the end of life among Hispanics. ⋯ Most Hispanic family caregivers preferred the patient to make shared decisions. Hispanic Latin American caregivers more frequently preferred patients to assume a passive decisional role. Acculturation did not influence the preferences of Hispanic American caregivers.
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2013
Spouse caregivers of people with advanced dementia in nursing homes: a longitudinal narrative study.
Dementia is a life limiting illness and is becoming a major cause of death in developed countries. Many people with dementia die in nursing homes or long-term residential care settings. Spouse caregivers of people with dementia living in nursing homes find themselves in a position which is difficult to understand and live with. ⋯ Nursing home staff need to acknowledge spouse carers in their own right, inviting them to tell their stories. We recommend that communication skills be included in educational programmes for nursing home staff. Further research is needed to determine the shape and context of carer needs assessment and support, as recommended in health policy.
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2013
Family caregiver satisfaction with home-based nursing and physician care over the palliative care trajectory: results from a longitudinal survey questionnaire.
A limited understanding of satisfaction with home-based palliative care currently exists. ⋯ The results may inform key health policy issues. Specifically, knowledge of how quality of care parameters predict family caregivers' satisfaction over the course of the palliative care trajectory may aid managers responsible for resource allocation and the determination of home care standards.