Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2013
Symptom burden predicts nursing home admissions among older adults.
Symptom burden has been associated with functional decline in community-dwelling older adults and may be responsive to interventions. Known predictors of nursing home (NH) admission are often nonmodifiable. ⋯ Symptom burden is an independent risk factor for NH admission. Aggressive management of symptoms in older adults may reduce or delay NH admission.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2013
A nationwide analysis of antibiotic use in hospice care in the final week of life.
Antibiotic prescription in hospice patients is complicated by the focus on palliative rather than curative care and concerns regarding increasing antibiotic resistance. ⋯ In this nationally representative sample, 27% of hospice patients received an antibiotic during the last seven days of life, most without a documented infectious diagnosis. Further research is needed to elucidate the role of antibiotics in this patient population to maintain palliative care goals while reducing unnecessary antibiotic use.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2013
Comparative StudyA survey of joint and muscle aches, pain, and stiffness comparing women with and without breast cancer.
Joint and muscle aches, pain, and stiffness have been reported to be a problem for some women after adjuvant breast cancer treatment; however, the extent and impact of this problem are unknown. ⋯ Treatment with tamoxifen, taxane chemotherapy, and aromatase inhibitors for breast cancer is predictive of joint pain, which may have an impact on women's lives for some years after breast cancer.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2013
Functional impairments as symptoms in the symptom cluster analysis of patients newly diagnosed with advanced cancer.
Symptoms and subsequent functional impairment have been associated with the biological processes of disease, including the interaction between disease and treatment in a measurement model of symptoms. However, hitherto cluster analysis has primarily focused on symptoms. ⋯ Functional impairments in patients newly diagnosed with late-stage cancers behave as symptoms during the diagnostic phase. Health care providers need to expand their assessments to include both symptoms and functional impairments. Early recognition of functional changes may accelerate diagnosis at an earlier cancer stage.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2013
Factors associated with depression in disease-free stomach cancer survivors.
Depression in cancer survivors affects the rest of their lives in many ways. ⋯ The prevalence of depression was high in stomach cancer survivors even after the completion of treatment, especially among those with problems amenable to treatment, and we identified the associated factors. We suggest that stomach cancer survivors should be screened for depression after the end of treatment.