Articles: palliative-care.
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J Health Hum Serv Adm · Jan 1998
Analysis of comfort care for the terminally ill: the hospice approach.
Much of the published literature on hospice care focuses on a single dimension of this increasingly popular approach to meeting the needs of the terminally ill. By contrast, this article takes a broader view by examining the hospice concept and its implementation through the lens of the nine dimensions of the SEPTEMBER model--focusing in turn on each of the social, economic, political, treatment, ethical, managerial, bereavement, education, and research elements. This broader perspective brings together in kaleidoscopic fashion these diverse but interconnected elements of hospice care. This integrated conceptual model helps administrators and health care professionals to develop a clearer overall picture of the multifaceted challenges involved in delivering palliative care to dying patients.
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Langenbecks Arch Chir Suppl Kongressbd · Jan 1998
[Video-assisted thoracoscopy for effective palliation of malignant pleural effusion. Pleurodesis--pleuroperitoneal shunt].
Dyspnea and reduced physical capability mean a significant reduction in quality of life of patients with advanced tumor disease. Video-assisted thoracoscopic talc poudrage or alternatively placement of pleuroperitoneal shunts were retrospectively evaluated as procedures for definitive palliation.
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Traditional medical treatment approaches for incurably and terminally ill persons are often felt by the patients and their families to be lacking, since distressing physical and spiritual symptoms of the disease cannot be adequately addressed. In many cases, care in the final stage of life represents a complex medical challenge whose objective is to maintain an individually sufficient quality of life for the patient. New strategies for therapy and care evolving out of the international hospice movement have entered medical training programs under the heading of palliative medicine. ⋯ In the public itself a changed and more open treatment of the topics of death and dying is becoming apparent, resulting in a demand as well for medical treatment options. From all this, as well as the fact that Germany has been strongly hesitant to establish palliative medicine facilities, it is apparent that there is a clear need to catch up in the area of palliative medicine treatment, research and teaching. The current mood of fiscal restraint in health care may delay medical progress, but it will not be able to prevent it.