Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · May 2013
Facilitating needs-based support and palliative care for people with chronic heart failure: preliminary evidence for the acceptability, inter-rater reliability, and validity of a needs assessment tool.
Understanding the types and extent of need is critical to informing needs-based care for people with chronic heart failure (CHF). ⋯ This study provides preliminary evidence for the NAT: PD-HF as a potential strategy for identifying and informing the management of physical and psychosocial issues experienced by people with CHF. Further work is needed to examine additional psychometrics, benefits relating to unnecessary symptom burden, futile treatments, and admissions to hospital.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · May 2013
Randomized Controlled TrialMusic therapy reduces pain in palliative care patients: a randomized controlled trial.
Treatment of pain in palliative care patients is challenging. Adjunctive methods of pain management are desirable. Music therapy offers a nonpharmacologic and safe alternative. ⋯ A significantly greater decrease in numeric rating scale pain scores was seen in the music therapy group (difference in means [95% CI] -1.4 [-2.0, -0.8]; P<0.0001). Mean changes in Face, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability scores did not differ between study groups (mean difference -0.3, [95% CI] -0.8, 0.1; P>0.05). Mean change in Functional Pain Scale scores was significantly greater in the music therapy group (difference in means -0.5 [95% CI] -0.8, 0.3; P<0.0001) [corrected]: A single music therapy intervention incorporating therapist-guided autogenic relaxation and live music was effective in lowering pain in palliative care patients.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · May 2013
Controlled Clinical TrialManagement of moderate-to-severe dyspnea in hospitalized patients receiving palliative care.
Benzodiazepines (BZDs) are commonly prescribed for relief of dyspnea in palliative care, yet few data describe their efficacy. ⋯ Most patients reported improvement in dyspnea at 24 hours after palliative care service consultation. Consistent with existing evidence, most patients with dyspnea received opioids but only the combination of opioids and BZDs was independently associated with improvement in dyspnea. Further research on the role of BZDs alone and in combination with opioids may lead to better treatments for this distressing symptom.