Articles: palliative-care.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2024
Improving Prenatal Palliative Care Consultation Using Diagnostic Trigger Criteria: Improving Prenatal Palliative Care Consultation through Quality Improvement.
Three percent of pregnancies are complicated by congenital anomalies. Prenatal integration of pediatric palliative care (PPC) may be hindered by non-standardized PPC referral processes. This quality improvement (QI) project aimed to improve prenatal PPC consultation using a diagnostic trigger list. ⋯ Diagnostic trigger lists improve initial rates of prenatal PPC consultation and additional interventions are likely needed to sustain this increase.
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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
Revised European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) recommended framework on palliative sedation: An international Delphi study.
The European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) acknowledges palliative sedation as an important, broadly accepted intervention for patients with life-limiting disease experiencing refractory symptoms. The EAPC therefore developed 2009 a framework on palliative sedation. A revision was needed due to new evidence from literature, ongoing debate and criticism of methodology, terminology and applicability. ⋯ This is the first framework on palliative sedation using a strict consensus methodology. It should serve as comprehensive and soundly developed information for healthcare professionals.
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Background: It is commonly thought that most deaths in developed countries take place in hospital. Death place is a palliative care quality indicator. Objectives: To determine the use of Canadian hospitals by patients who died in hospital during the 2019-2020 year and any additional hospital utilization occurring over their last 365 days of life. ⋯ Conclusions: This study confirms a continuing shift of death and dying out of hospital in Canada. Most deaths and end-of-life care preceding death take place outside of hospitals now. Enhanced community-based services are recommended to support optimal dying processes outside of hospitals and also help more dying people avoid hospital deaths.