Journal of pain and symptom management
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Hope is important to cancer patients as it helps them deal with their diagnosis. Little is known about hope in newly diagnosed cancer patients. ⋯ Older adults comprise the majority of persons in Canada with cancer. The lower hope scores found in this age group compared with their younger counterparts underscore the importance of further research. This study provides a foundation for future research in this important area for oncology patients.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2013
The cost-effectiveness of the decision to hospitalize nursing home residents with advanced dementia.
Nursing home (NH) residents with advanced dementia commonly experience burdensome and costly hospitalizations that may not extend survival or improve quality of life. Cost-effectiveness analyses of decisions to hospitalize these residents have not been reported. ⋯ Treatment strategies favoring hospitalization for NH residents with advanced dementia are not cost effective.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2013
Living with advanced but stable multiple myeloma: a study of the symptom burden and cumulative effects of disease and intensive (hematopoietic stem cell transplant-based) treatment on health-related quality of life.
The cumulative impact of disease and treatment-related factors on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in long-term survivors of multiple myeloma is poorly characterized. ⋯ Despite disease control and supportive care, intensively treated long-term myeloma survivors have significantly compromised HRQoL related to symptom burden. Systematic assessment is routinely indicated in advanced phase myeloma, even when disease activity is stable. Further studies should investigate the utility of interventional strategies and the relationship of cytokines with symptoms.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2013
Targeted investment improves access to hospice and palliative care.
Availability of hospice and palliative care is increasing, despite lack of a clear national strategy for developing and evaluating their penetration into and impact on the target population. ⋯ Receipt of philanthropic funding appeared to be associated with improved access to palliative care and hospice services in NC.
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Providing care for patients and caring about patients should go hand in hand. Caring implicates our fundamental attitude towards patients, and our ability to convey kindness, compassion and respect. Yet all too often, patients and families experience health care as impersonal, mechanical; and quickly discover that patienthood trumps personhood. ⋯ If caring really matters, health care systems can insist on certain behaviors and impose certain obligations on health care providers to improve care tenor, empathy, and effective communication. Caregivers need to be engaged in looking at their own attitudes towards patients, their own vulnerability, their own fears and whatever else it is that shapes their tone of care. Health care professionals must set aside some time, supported by their institutions, to advance a culture of caring-now is the time to take action.