Journal of pain and symptom management
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2025
Arts in Medicine for the Reduction of Pain and Stress in Cancer Patients During Chemotherapy.
Rates of pain and stress are found in greater numbers in cancer patients than in the general population. Cancer patients often are concerned about unwanted side effects that can arise from taking medications to lower their pain and stress. As doctors are reaching for evidence-based, non-pharmaceutical, adjunct modalities, previous research indicates that visual art-making shows promise to help improve perceptions of pain and stress caused by a cancer diagnosis and treatment. ⋯ This suggests that a watercolor visual arts intervention is a viable and feasible non-pharmaceutical complementary alternative to opioid prescriptions for pain management.
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2025
Malignant hematologic oncology referrals to an outpatient palliative care clinic at a tertiary cancer center.
Hematological malignancies represent a heterogeneous group of diseases with variable and often unpredictable illness trajectories. Comparisons between hematological and solid tumor malignancy referrals to an outpatient palliative care clinic have not been explored. ⋯ Patients with hematological malignancies experience at least similar symptom burden to those with solid tumor malignancies referred to a palliative care clinic, and worse performance status, factors that should be considered when designing palliative care clinic interventions for patients with hematological malignancies.
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2025
Impact of Pediatric Palliative Care on Goal Concordant Care in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Little is known about the prevalence of goal-concordant care (GCC) in the NICU and whether it can be measured from chart data. ⋯ Most infants received GCC, which was able to be determined from chart data. GCC was associated with several demographic and hospitalization factors such as PPC consultation and psychosocial supports. After adjusting for confounding, PPC was not a significant predictor of GCC.
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2025
Symptom Documentation in Unstructured Palliative Care Notes of Children and Adolescents with Cancer.
Children and adolescents with cancer experiencing complex symptoms can benefit from subspeciality palliative care. However, standardized methods of symptom documentation by pediatric palliative care teams are lacking. Understanding current approaches to symptom documentation will inform next steps to optimize symptom support. ⋯ Palliative care clinicians routinely documented the co-occurrence of multiple complex symptoms experienced by children and adolescents with cancer. Unstructured progress notes captured evidence of symptom impact on daily life. Clinicians may benefit from a systematic approach to document symptoms in the clinical record which supports symptom identification and communication across clinical teams.