Palliative medicine
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Palliative medicine · Feb 2024
ReviewUnderstanding the extent to which PROMs and PREMs used with older people with severe frailty capture their multidimensional needs: A scoping review.
Older people with severe frailty are nearing the end of life but their needs are often unknown and unmet. Systematic ways to capture and measure the needs of this group are required. Patient reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) & Patient reported Experience Measures (PREMs) are possible tools to assist this. ⋯ Existing PROMs and PREMs are not well designed for what we know about the needs of older people with severe frailty. Future research should firstly focus on adapting and validating the existing measures to ensure they are fit for purpose, and secondly on developing a better understanding of how measures are used to deliver/better person-centred care.
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Palliative medicine · Feb 2024
Randomized Controlled TrialDoes a novel community-based outpatient palliative care intervention for Parkinson's disease and related disorders improve care? Qualitative results from patients and care partners.
Palliative care has the potential to address significant unmet needs in people with Parkinson's disease and related disorders, but models that rely on in-person specialty palliative care teams have limited scalability. ⋯ Clinicians caring for people with Parkinson's disease and related disorders should screen for non-motor symptoms, provide regular prognostic counseling, and refer to specialty palliative care services earlier in the course of illness. Future interventions should be designed to promote uptake of palliative care training by community neurologists and further optimize referral to and coordination with in-person or remote specialty palliative teams.
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Palliative medicine · Feb 2024
Long-term bereavement outcomes in family members of those who died in acute care hospitals before and during the first wave of COVID-19: A cohort study.
Severe grief is highly distressing and prevalent up to 1 year post-death among people bereaved during the first wave of COVID-19, but no study has assessed changes in grief severity beyond this timeframe. ⋯ Severe grief is a substantial source of psychological morbidity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, persisting more than a year post-death. Our findings highlight an acute need for effective and scalable means of addressing severe grief.
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Palliative medicine · Feb 2024
Social acceptability of psilocybin-assisted therapy for existential distress at the end of life: A population-based survey.
Internationally, there is a growing interest in the potential benefits of psilocybin-assisted therapy to treat existential distress at the end of life. However, the social acceptability of this therapy is not yet well known. ⋯ The social acceptability of psilocybin-assisted therapy for existential distress at the end of life is rather high in Canada. These findings may contribute to efforts to mobilise resources and improve access to this emerging therapy in palliative and end of life care settings.