Palliative medicine
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Palliative medicine · Sep 2019
The incidence and prevalence of delirium across palliative care settings: A systematic review.
Delirium is a common and distressing neurocognitive condition that frequently affects patients in palliative care settings and is often underdiagnosed. ⋯ Delirium is prevalent across all palliative care settings, with one-third of patients delirious at the time of admission to inpatient palliative care. Study heterogeneity limits meta-analyses and highlights the future need for rigorous studies.
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Palliative medicine · Sep 2019
Robotic technology for palliative and supportive care: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Medical robots are increasingly used for a variety of applications in healthcare. Robots have mainly been used to support surgical procedures, and for a variety of assistive uses in dementia and elderly care. To date, there has been limited debate about the potential opportunities and risks of robotics in other areas of palliative, supportive and end-of-life care. ⋯ Robotics could have a number of potential applications in palliative, supportive and end-of-life care. Future work should evaluate the health-related, economic, societal and ethical implications of using this technology. There is a need for collaborative research to establish use-cases and inform policy, to ensure the appropriate use (or non-use) of robots for people with serious illness.
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Palliative medicine · Sep 2019
Consumer and carer leadership in palliative care academia and practice: A systematic review with narrative synthesis.
Contemporary health policies call for consumers to be part of all aspects of service planning, implementation, delivery and evaluation. The extent to which consumers are part of the systemic decision-making levels of palliative care appears to vary between and within services and organisations. ⋯ The findings suggest that more could be done to support consumer leadership within palliative care. Academics and clinicians might improve the relevance of their work if they are able to more meaningfully partner with consumers in systemic roles in palliative care.
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Palliative medicine · Sep 2019
Communication between healthcare professionals and relatives of patients approaching the end-of-life: A systematic review of qualitative evidence.
Effective communication between healthcare professionals and relatives of patients approaching the end-of-life is vital to ensure patients have a 'good death'. To improve communication, it is important to first identify how this is currently being accomplished. ⋯ Findings suggest training could provide healthcare professionals with these strategies to improve communication. Interventions such as question prompt lists could help relatives overcome barriers to involvement in decision-making. Further research is needed to understand communication with relatives in different settings and with different healthcare professionals.
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Palliative medicine · Sep 2019
Which outcome domains are important in palliative care and when? An international expert consensus workshop, using the nominal group technique.
When capturing patient-level outcomes in palliative care, it is essential to identify which outcome domains are most important and focus efforts to capture these, in order to improve quality of care and minimise collection burden. ⋯ The domains of 'overall wellbeing/quality of life', 'pain', and 'information needs/preferences' are recommended for regular measurement, assessed using 'Phase of Illness'. International adoption of these recommendations will help standardise approaches to improving the quality of palliative care.