Articles: palliative-care.
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Rare diseases are often life-limiting conditions, the majority of which require constant caregiving needs. The realization of a spectrum of palliative care throughout the trajectory of rare diseases could ensure individualized and caregiver-focused approaches to the care of patients and families. ⋯ This meeting provided an in-depth opportunity to incorporate new concepts into palliative and end-of-life care for individuals with a range of rare diseases and their caregivers. This report presents a summary of the workshop.
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The observed structured clinical examination (OSCE) is an important tool to assess clinical competencies; however, there are no reported palliative care OSCEs for medical student assessment. ⋯ A new OSCE to assess palliative care competencies was feasible to implement with high inter-rater reliability, evidence supporting validity, and moderate internal consistency. We believe this OSCE would prove useful to assess students' primary palliative care competency and to evaluate curricula in palliative care.
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2016
'Because it's the wife who has to look after the man': A descriptive qualitative study of older women and the intersection of gender and the provision of family caregiving at the end of life.
Research indicates that women are the primary family caregivers for others at life's end and, because of ageing populations, will keep fulfilling this role as they age. Yet, little is known about how the gendered nature of caregiving contributes to older women's understandings of providing care. ⋯ The expectation that older women will provide end-of-life care even when experiencing considerable burden is an unacknowledged outcome of gender norms that construct women as caregivers.
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2016
Comparative StudyAccuracy of physician prognosis in heart failure and lung cancer: Comparison between physician estimates and model predicted survival.
Anticipating adverse outcomes guides decisions but can be particularly challenging in heart failure. ⋯ Less than half of physicians accurately estimate survival in heart failure. Cardiologists were more accurate than other specialties for heart failure symptoms and reduced ejection fraction but no different for heart failure symptoms and preserved ejection fraction.