Journal of palliative medicine
-
Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way clinicians practice medicine, and recent technological advancements have resulted in consumer-facing products that can respond to users with dynamic and nuanced language. Clinicians typically struggle with serious illness communication, such as delivering news about a poor prognosis. ⋯ This article explores the allure of employing AI-powered chatbots to assist nonspecialist clinicians with serious illness communication and highlights the ethical and practical drawbacks. While outsourcing communication to new AI chatbot technologies may be inappropriate, there is a role for AI in training clinicians on effective language to use when discussing serious illness with their patients.
-
There is a need for understanding the breadth of interventions for caregivers of individuals receiving hospice care at home, given the important role caregivers play in caring and the negative outcomes (e.g., depression) associated with their caregiving. Previous reviews were limited in scope to certain types of interventions or patient populations. The objective of this scoping review was to broadly examine the interventions targeting caregivers who provide care to terminally ill patients in home, with the purpose of (1) describing the characteristics of these interventions, (2) discussing key outcomes, limitations, and knowledge gaps, (3) highlighting intervention strengths, and (4) proposing future research directions. ⋯ Missing data on patient and caregiver characteristics (i.e., age, gender) were common, and less than half of studies (n = 32, 42%) reported race/ethnicity data. Our review highlighted the current state of interventions for caregivers of patients receiving hospice care at home. Many of the interventions were in the early phases of development, raising the need for future studies to look at efficacy, effectiveness, and the ability to implement interventions in real-world settings.
-
Review
Associations Between Measures of Disability and Quality of Life at Three Months After Stroke.
Background: The modified Rankin Scale (mRS), which measures degree of disability in daily activities, is the most common outcome measure in stroke research. Quality of life (QoL), however, is impacted by factors other than disability. The goal of this study was to assess the correlation between functional dependence and a more patient-centered QoL measure, the European QoL visual analog scale (EQ VAS). ⋯ In multivariable analysis, older age, male gender, and absence of dementia, were associated with good QoL despite dependent mRS; atrial fibrillation was associated with poor QoL despite independent mRS. Conclusions: QoL decreases with increasing mRS, but exceptions exist with good QoL despite high mRS. To provide patient-centered care, clinicians and researchers should avoid equating disability with QoL after stroke.
-
In this first segment of the emergency palliative care case series, we present a patient who arrives to the emergency department (ED) with signs of impending death in the setting of a newly diagnosed nonsurvivable condition. The patient has a history of chronic and serious illness including metastatic lung cancer, but her ED presentation is prompted by new symptoms of abdominal pain and diarrhea that are not immediately attributable to her known history and reflect the onset of a catastrophic process. Palliative care consultation is requested after surgery determines that that patient is not a candidate for surgical intervention. The palliative care provider plays an important role in supporting aggressive symptom management, elucidating goals of care, and rapidly facilitating disposition.
-
Context: Despite the increased number of people living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (PLWD), limited early palliative care interventions exist for this population. Adapting promising interventions for other progressive disease conditions may address this need. Few published studies have examined this topic using recognized adaptation frameworks. ⋯ The prioritization matrix was very useful in guiding additional intervention refinements, incorporating suggestions deemed highly important and improving the clarity of SUPPORT-D™. Conclusion: Adapting existing interventions for use by PLWD and caregivers is a practical approach that can increase the speed of translation of applicable and effective interventions used in other populations. Early feedback, prioritized using a matrix, helped further refine the initial adaptation.