Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2021
Randomized Controlled Trial Pragmatic Clinical TrialElectro-acupuncture for post-stroke spasticity: results of a pilot pragmatic randomized controlled trial.
People with spasticity that occurred between 30 days and one year after stroke onset with a baseline Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS) ≥1. ⋯ It is feasible to conduct a full-scale trial to precisely evaluate the effectiveness and safety of EA for treating poststroke spasticity; however, longer treatment and follow-up phases should be considered in the full-scale trial.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2021
Epidemiology of Fear, Sadness and Anger Expression in Palliative Care Conversations.
Advancing the science of serious illness communication requires methods for measuring characteristics of conversations in large studies. Understanding which characteristics predict clinically important outcomes can help prioritize attention to scalable measure development. ⋯ Fear, anger, and sadness are commonly expressed in hospital-based palliative care consultations with people who have advanced cancer. Anger is an epidemiologically useful predictor of important clinical outcomes.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2021
National Trends in Hospice Facility Deaths in the United States, 2003-2017.
Hospice facilities are increasingly preferred as a location of death, but little is known about the characteristics of patients who die in these facilities in the U.S. ⋯ Hospice facility deaths increased among all patient groups; however, striking differences exist by age, sex, race, marital status, education level, cause of death, and geography. Factors underlying these disparities should be examined.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2021
A Retrospective Study of Rapid Symptom Response in Bleeding Gynecologic Malignancies with Short Course Palliative Radiation Therapy: Less is More.
Advanced gynecologic malignancies can cause significant vaginal bleeding. Radiotherapy (RT) is often used to palliate symptoms, but limited data exist concerning the optimal dose and expected time to bleeding hemostasis in this population. ⋯ Women receiving SCRT for bleeding gynecologic malignancies achieved rapid symptom control (often during treatment) with minimal rebleeding. In a population whose median survival is four months, SCRT effectively addresses symptomatic disease while minimizing patient burden and toxicity.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2021
Observational StudyCommunication and behavior of palliative care physicians of cancer patients near end-of-life in three East Asian countries.
The characteristics of physician communication with patients at the end of life (EOL) in East Asia have not been well studied. We investigated physicians' communications with imminently dying patients with cancer and their families in palliative care units (PCUs) in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. ⋯ Physicians in Taiwan communicated about patient's impending death most frequently, and physicians in all three countries generally provided assurance to families that the patients would remain comfortable. Further studies should explore the reasons for these differences and the effects of such communications in East Asia.