Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Apr 2016
Unmet Supportive Care Needs in United States Dialysis Centers and Lack of Knowledge of Available Resources to Address Them.
Because of high symptom burden, numerous comorbidities, and shortened life expectancy, dialysis patients are increasingly recognized as appropriate candidates for early and continuous supportive care. ⋯ Dialysis professionals report significant unmet supportive care needs and barriers in their centers with only a small minority rating themselves as competently providing supportive care. There is an urgent need for education of dialysis professionals about available supportive care resources to provide quality supportive care to dialysis patients.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Apr 2016
Case ReportsRole of the Nasogastric Tube and Lingzhi (Ganoderma Lucidum) in Palliative Care.
Decision-making on behalf of an incapacitated patient at the end of life is a complex process, particularly in family-centric societies. The situation is more complex when attempts are made to accommodate Eastern concepts of end-of-life care with more conventional Western approaches. In this case report of an incapacitated 74-year-old Singaporean man of Malay descent with relapsed Stage 4 diffuse large B cell lymphoma who was without an established lasting power of attorney, we highlight the difficult deliberations that ensue when the patient's family, acting as his proxy, elected to administer lingzhi through his nasogastric tube (NGT). Focusing on the questions pertaining to end-of-life decision-making in Asia, we consider the issues surrounding the use of NGT and lingzhi in palliative care (PC) and the implementation of NGT for administering lingzhi in a PC setting, particularly in light of a dearth of data on such treatment measures among PC patients.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Apr 2016
An Exploratory Factor Analysis of the Scale Structure of the Patient Care Monitor (PCM) Version 2.0.
The Patient Care Monitor (PCM), version 2.0, is an electronic patient-reported outcomes instrument designed to be embedded into oncology practices. One key psychometric component of an instrument is its factor structure. ⋯ Although six subscales postulated by its developers perform reasonably, allocation of the PCM items to three constructs is more accurate and likely more consistent with how symptoms and concerns are conceptualized by patients.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Apr 2016
Concordance of Advance Care Plans with Inpatient Directives in the Electronic Medical Record for Older Patients Admitted from the Emergency Department.
Measuring What Matters identified quality indicators to examine the percentage of patients with documentation of a surrogate decision maker and preferences for life-sustaining treatments. ⋯ About half of the patients 65 years or older arriving in the ED have done significant advance care planning, but most plans are not recorded in the EMR.
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PC-FACS(FastArticleCriticalSummaries for Clinicians inPalliativeCare) provides hospice and palliative care clinicians with concise summaries of the most important findings from more than 100 medical and scientific journals. If you have colleagues who would benefit from receiving PC-FACS, please encourage them to join the AAHPM at aahpm.org. Comments from readers are welcomed at pc-facs@aahpm.org.