Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2012
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyScrambler therapy may relieve chronic neuropathic pain more effectively than guideline-based drug management: results of a pilot, randomized, controlled trial.
Neuropathic pain is common, disabling, and often difficult to treat. ⋯ In this pilot randomized trial, Scrambler therapy appeared to relieve chronic neuropathic pain better than guideline-based drug management.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2012
Palliative care services in California hospitals: program prevalence and hospital characteristics.
In 2000, 17% of California hospitals offered palliative care (PC) services. Since then, hospital-based PC programs have become increasingly common, and preferred practices for these services have been proposed by expert consensus. ⋯ Although the number of hospital-based PC services in California has doubled since 2000, more than half of the acute care hospitals still do not provide PC services. Developing initiatives that target small, public, and investor-owned hospitals may lead to wider availability of PC services.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2012
Practice patterns and perceptions about parenteral hydration in the last weeks of life: a survey of palliative care physicians in Latin America.
Parenteral hydration at the end of life is controversial and has generated considerable debate for decades. ⋯ The strongest determinant of prescribing patterns was agreement with the clinical/psychological efficaciousness of parenteral hydration. Our results reflect parenteral hydration prescribing patterns and perceptions that substantially differ from the conventional/traditional hospice philosophy. These findings suggest that the decision to prescribe or withhold parenteral hydration is largely based on clinical perceptions and that most palliative care physicians from this region of the world individualize treatment decisions.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2012
Pain in patients attending a specialist cancer service: prevalence and association with emotional distress.
We know little about how many outpatients of a modern cancer center suffer from clinically significant unrelieved pain and the characteristics of these patients to guide better care. ⋯ CSP is surprisingly common in outpatients of specialist cancer services, and it is strongly and independently associated with emotional distress. Better symptom management should consider pain and distress together.
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PC-FACS (Fast Article Critical Summaries for Clinicians in Palliative Care), an electronic publication of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, provides palliative care clinicians with concise summaries of the most important findings from more than 50 medical and scientific journals. Each month, structured summaries and insightful commentaries on 6-10 articles help palliative care clinicians stay on top of the research that is critical to contemporary practice. PC-FACS is free to AAHPM members and members can earn up to 3 CME credits quarterly. Following are excerpts from recent issues, and comments from readers are welcomed at resources@aahpm.org.