Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2021
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyA Question Prompt List for advanced cancer patients promoting advance care planning: a French randomised trial.
Advance care planning is essential to enable informed medical decisions to be made and to reduce aggressiveness in end-of-life (EOL) care. ⋯ Questions on PC and EOL issues in outpatient PC consultations were more frequent, and patient satisfaction was better when a QPL was made available before the consultation.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2021
ReviewEffect of virtual reality therapy in reducing pain and anxiety for cancer related medical procedures: A systematic narrative review.
Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a novel form of nonpharmacological analgesia therapy. We wished to review the use of VR to treat pain and anxiety in cancer-related medical procedures and chemotherapy. ⋯ There is inconclusive evidence on the significance of immersive VR in reducing pain (five studies) or anxiety (six studies) for patients with cancer undergoing medical interventions or receiving chemotherapy. Further research on the effect of immersive VR as a tool for medical procedures and/or patients with cancer undergoing treatment is required.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2021
ReviewExploring Factors Associated with Long-Term Opioid Therapy in Cancer Survivors:An Integrative Review.
The prevalence of chronic pain in cancer survivors is double that of the general U.S. ⋯ The studies in this review shed light on the factors associated with LTOT in cancer survivors. LTOT was common in certain populations of cancer survivors and those with a collection of patient-specific characteristics. This review suggests that there is a critical need for specialized research on chronic cancer pain and opioid safety in cancer survivors.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2021
Enhancing palliative care with mindful touch: Impact of a manual and movement therapy training program in an international multi-disciplinary integrative oncology setting.
Manual and movement therapies (MMTs) play a central role in the integrative oncology setting, significantly improving patients' quality of life (QOL). Despite research supporting the effectiveness and safety of these modalities, most oncology health care providers (HCPs) lack any MMT training. ⋯ An MMT training program for oncology HCPs for QOL-related indications is both feasible and likely to be implemented in palliative and supportive cancer care. Nonspecific effects of MMTs were also recognized for their ability to facilitate patient-centered care.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2021
Implementing Goals of Care Conversations: Lessons from High and Low Performing Sites from a VA National Initiative.
The Veterans Health Administration (VA) National Center for Ethics in Healthcare implemented the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decisions Initiative, including policy and practice standards, clinician communication training, a documentation template, and central implementation support to foster advance care planning via goals-of-care conversations for seriously ill veterans in 2014, spreading nationally to other Veterans Health Affairs (VA) sites in 2017. ⋯ Learning health care systems need multilevel interdisciplinary implementation approaches to support communication about serious illness, from broad-based system-level training and education to build communication skills, to focusing on characteristics of successful individual champions who listen to critics and are tenacious in addressing concerns.