Articles: palliative-care.
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Palliative care services provided alongside traditional oncology care have been shown to be beneficial to patients and families. This article provides a brief history of palliative care, a pathway to implementing these services into currently established oncology programs, and a brief discussion of common barriers.
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Am J Hosp Palliat Care · Aug 2016
ReviewInformal Caregivers of Palliative Oncohematologic Patients: The Invisible Guests: An Exhaustive Review of the Literature Available.
Informal caregivers are crucial members of the teams that care for palliative patients with cancer, including those with oncohematological malignancies. Publications concerning specific aspects of this latter group of carers are limited. ⋯ However, there are specific problems for the former group with regard to negotiating the curative system, which are experienced as distressing, often without support from the health system and without offers of the possibility of being referred to palliative teams that they would have valued as very positive. Although this tendency seems to be changing, there is still considerable work to be done to improve the role of these carers.
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Support Care Cancer · Aug 2016
Patients' understanding of treatment goals and disease course and their relationship with optimism, hope, and quality of life: a preliminary study among advanced breast cancer outpatients before receiving palliative treatment.
The aims of this study were to explore advanced breast cancer patients' knowledge of treatment intent and expectation of illness course and to evaluate their relationship with optimism, hope, and quality of life (QoL). ⋯ A large proportion of patients diagnosed with advanced breast cancer believed that their treatment was "curative", and they would improve within a year. Findings of our study suggest that patients with inaccurate perception of treatment intent and unrealistic expectation of prognosis have higher hope and optimism scores than those who do not, but there were no significant differences in terms of global health status.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2016
Hearing Loss in Hospice and Palliative Care: A National Survey of Providers.
Age-related hearing loss can impair patient-provider communication about symptom management, goals of care, and end-of-life decision-making. ⋯ Hospice and palliative medicine providers believe age-related hearing loss impacts care yet most do not screen. Although they feel they are managing well, few have formal training. Knowledge about management approaches and resources is suboptimal.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2016
Hospice Enrollment Following Referral to Community-Based, Specialist-Level Palliative Care: Incidence, Timing and Predictors.
Referral to community-based palliative care may increase the likelihood of hospice enrollment. ⋯ Almost one-quarter of patients were enrolled in hospice while receiving community-based palliative care, and hospice length of stay was relatively long for those who did. Both sociodemographic and clinical characteristics were associated with hospice-related outcomes. Studies are needed to further explore predictors and outcomes of hospice enrollment from palliative care.