Journal of palliative medicine
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Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative illness that causes disability through both motor and nonmotor symptoms. Family caregivers provide substantial care to persons living with PD, often at great personal cost. While spiritual well-being and spirituality have been suggested to promote resiliency in caregivers of persons living with cancer and dementia, this issue has not been explored in PD. ⋯ Conclusions: The present study suggests that both patient and caregiver factors are associated with spiritual well-being in PD. Further study is needed to understand the causal relationship of these factors and whether interventions to support caregiver spiritual well-being improve outcomes for caregivers or patients. Clinicaltrials.gov registration NCT02533921.
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Background: People with life-limiting illnesses experience a range of distressing symptoms. Appetite-related symptoms are common, but studies have found varied prevalence and the distress caused has had limited quantification. Objectives: To examine the clinicodemographic factors and trajectory of appetite-related distress in the last 60 days of life. ⋯ There was a sharp decline in mean distress for all diagnostic groups around 7-10 days before death. Moderate to severe distress was associated with nausea-, bowel-, pain-, and breathing-related distress, controlling for key baseline factors. Conclusion: Appetite-related distress is prevalent and burdensome in the 60 days before death and is strongly associated with distress from other cardinal symptoms.
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Introduction: Code status discussions are poorly understood by patients and variably performed by admitting providers, yet they are used as a quality metric. Surgical specialties, such as Vascular Surgery, admit patients with urgent and life-threatening illness. Surgical trainees are less likely to receive communication skills interventions when compared with nonsurgical specialties. ⋯ There was no change in admission rates during the study period. Discussion: CST and regular reminders increased vascular surgery residents' and APPs' comfort in engaging in code status discussions. After intervention, documentation of code status discussions increased with persistence up to six months after the intervention.
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Palliative care clinicians provide psychological support throughout their patients' journeys with illness. Throughout our series exploring the psychological elements of palliative care (PEPC), we suggested that the quality of care is enhanced when clinicians have a deeper understanding of patients' psychological experience of serious illness. ⋯ First, to integrate PEPC into a comfort-focused or hospice setting and, second, to demonstrate how the core psychological concepts previously explored in the series manifest during the dying process. These aspects include frame/formulation, attachment, attunement, transference/countertransference, the holding environment, and clinician wellness.
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Background: Patients with neurologic impairment (NI) experience gastrointestinal symptoms as one of three common problems associated with NI, including occasional persistent total parenteral nutrition (TPN) use. Objective: To describe the incidence of persistent TPN use in patients with NI. Design: Retrospective chart review on patients 0-38 years old enrolled in the Complex Health Care Program from January 2011 to October 2015. ⋯ Conclusions: Our study demonstrates a substantial population of patients with NI and surgical feeding tube are affected by persistent feeding intolerance. We propose that persistent TPN use may be a risk factor for mortality. Additional research is needed to delineate relationships between persistent TPN use, hospitalizations, and mortality.