Palliative & supportive care
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Palliat Support Care · Jun 2008
Psychiatric issues in palliative care: recognition of delirium in patients enrolled in hospice care.
Delirium is prevalent, difficult to assess, under-recognized, and undertreated in hospice and palliative care settings. Furthermore, it is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Under-recognition of delirium results in under-treatment and increased suffering. The intent of this study was to retrospectively evaluate the recognition of delirium in a large cohort of hospice patients by interdisciplinary hospice care teams. ⋯ If documentation is representative of the care that the interdisciplinary teams provide, delirium of any kind appears to be under-recognized in this population. In fact, it is on the low end of prevalence estimates in the literature. Improved delirium assessment is needed in order to minimize the impact of delirium on patients living with advanced, life-threatening illnesses and their caregivers.
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Palliat Support Care · Jun 2008
Predictors of well-being in bereaved former hospice caregivers: the role of caregiving stressors, appraisals, and social resources.
The current literature on caregiving and bereavement indicates that the relationship between these two common life events is complex and needs to be further studied in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their interaction. ⋯ Results support both the resource depletion and anticipatory grief hypotheses and suggest that short-term bereavement outcomes are different than factors that predict well-being while caregiving. Future studies should address whether long-term bereavement outcomes differ by baseline caregiving characteristics to guide intervention research.