Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2017
Evaluation of a pain assessment procedure in long-term care residents with pain and dementia.
The management of pain in long-term care (LTC) residents with dementia is complex. A prospective exploratory study was conducted to describe the course of pain and pain management strategies following a guideline-based pain assessment procedure in LTC residents with pain and dementia. ⋯ There is room for improvement regarding pain management in LTC residents with pain and dementia, and performance feedback seems a promising strategy to explore further.
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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
To intubate or not to intubate: emergency medicine physicians' perspective on intubating critically ill, terminal cancer patients.
Emergency physicians (EPs) often need to make a decision whether or not to intubate a terminal cancer patient. ⋯ EPs vary in their attitudes about intubating dying cancer patients when families demanded it, even when they believed it was nonbeneficial and against the patient's wishes. Palliative care education has the potential to influence that decision making. Intubation could be mitigated by the availability of palliative consultation in the ED.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2017
The Implementation of Measuring What Matters in Research and Practice: Series Commentary.
The Measuring What Matters (MWM) initiative identified 10 indicators of high-quality palliative and hospice care. Members of the AAHPM Research Committee, through a special series of articles, examined applications of the MWM quality indicators in research and practice settings. Many themes were present in these articles, including the important role of electronic health records in quality measurement, challenges and strategies for implementing and tracking measures over time, and the importance of identifying new measures. This article is the final commentary of the series and includes recommendations for next steps in quality measurement.