Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2017
Observational StudyValidation of 'Cancer Dyspnea Scale' in patients with advanced cancer in a palliative care setting in India.
Assessment of dyspnea in patients with advanced cancer is challenging. Cancer Dyspnea Scale (CDS) is a multidimensional scale developed for the measurement of dyspnea. It is available only in Japanese, English, and Swedish and has not been validated before in the Indian languages. ⋯ This study demonstrates that CDS-H and CDS-M are valid and reliable multidimensional scales, which can be used to assess dyspnea in patients with advanced cancer.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2017
Gaps in Provision of Primary and Specialty Palliative Care in the Acute Care Setting by Race and Ethnicity.
Previous research has identified a large unmet need in provision of specialist-level palliative care services in the hospital. How much of this gap is filled by primary palliative care provided by generalists or nonpalliative specialists has not been quantified. Estimates of racial and ethnic disparities have been inconsistent. ⋯ Even when considering primary and specialty palliative care, hospitalized patients have a high prevalence of unmet palliative care need. Further research is needed understand racial and ethnic disparities in palliative care delivery.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2017
Is early palliative care feasible in patients with Multiple Myeloma?
Evidence for the benefits of early palliative care (EPC) in patients with solid tumors is strong, but EPC has received scant attention in hematologic malignancies. ⋯ These findings indicate that EPC is feasible in patients with multiple myeloma. Pain and other symptoms were well controlled.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2017
Preferences for life-sustaining treatments examined by hidden Markov modeling are mostly stable in terminally ill cancer patients' last 6 months of life.
Stability of life-sustaining treatment (LST) preferences at end of life (EOL) has not been well established for terminally ill cancer patients nor have transition probabilities been explored between different types of preferences. ⋯ Our patients' LST preferences remained stable without prominent shifts toward preferring less aggressive LSTs even when death approached. Clarifying patients' understanding and expectations about LST efficacy and tailoring interventions to the unique needs of patients in each state may provide personalized EOL care.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2017
What Impact Do Chaplains Have? A Pilot Study of Spiritual AIM for Advanced Cancer Patients in Outpatient Palliative Care.
Spiritual care is integral to quality palliative care. Although chaplains are uniquely trained to provide spiritual care, studies evaluating chaplains' work in palliative care are scarce. ⋯ Spiritual AIM, a brief chaplain-led intervention, holds potential to address spiritual needs and religious and general coping in patients with serious illnesses.