Palliative medicine
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Palliative medicine · May 2013
ReviewCross-cultural development of the EORTC QLQ-SWB36: a stand-alone measure of spiritual wellbeing for palliative care patients with cancer.
No existing stand-alone measures of spiritual wellbeing have been developed in cross-cultural and multiple linguistic contexts. ⋯ The EORTC QLG's rigorous cross-cultural development process ensures that the EORTC QLQ-SWB36 identifies key issues for spiritual wellbeing in multiple cultural contexts, and that items are comprehensible and consistent across languages. Some cross-cultural differences were observed, but data were insufficient to enable generalisation. Phase IV field-testing will investigate these differences further.
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Palliative medicine · May 2013
ReviewPrognostic indicators of 6-month mortality in elderly people with advanced dementia: a systematic review.
For end-of-life dementia patients, palliative care offers a better quality of life than continued aggressive or burdensome medical interventions. To provide the best care options to dementia sufferers, validated, reliable, sensitive, and accurate prognostic tools to identify end-of-life dementia stages are necessary. ⋯ Although the majority of studies agreed that the Functional Assessment Staging 7c criterion was not a reliable predictor of 6-month mortality, we found a lack of prognosticator concordance across the literature. Further studies are essential to identify reliable, sensitive, and specific prognosticators, which can be applied to the clinical setting and allow increased availability of palliative care to dementia patients.
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Palliative medicine · May 2013
A qualitative study: professionals' experiences of advance care planning in dementia and palliative care, 'a good idea in theory but ...'.
Advance care planning comprises discussions about an individual's wishes for future care while they have capacity. ⋯ This study has identified the professional, organisational and legal factors that influence advance care planning implementation; professional training should target these specific areas. There is an urgent need for standardisation of advance care planning documentation. Greater clarity is also required on the roles and responsibilities of different professional groups. More complex aspects of advance care planning may be better carried out by those with specialist skills and experience than by generalists caring for a wide range of patient groups with different disease trajectories.
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Palliative medicine · May 2013
To be involved or not to be involved: a survey of public preferences for self-involvement in decision-making involving mental capacity (competency) within Europe.
The Council of Europe has recommended that member states of European Union encourage their citizens to make decisions about their healthcare before they lose capacity to do so. However, it is unclear whether the public wants to make such decisions beforehand. ⋯ Self-involvement in decision-making is important to the European public. However, a large proportion of the public prefer to not make decisions about their care in advance of incapacity. Financial hardship, educational attainment, age, and preferences regarding quality and quantity of life require further examination; these factors should be considered in relation to policy.
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Palliative medicine · May 2013
ReviewA 10-year literature review of family caregiving for motor neurone disease: moving from caregiver burden studies to palliative care interventions.
There is growing awareness that different terminal diseases translate into different family caregiver experiences, and the palliative and supportive care needs of these families are both similar and unique. Family members caring for people with motor neurone disease may experience exceptional strain due to the usually rapid and progressive nature of this terminal illness. ⋯ Caregiver burden and quality-of-life studies on motor neurone disease family caregivers have so far dominated the research landscape .The focus needs to be on developing interventions that provide direct practical and psychosocial supports for motor neurone disease family caregivers.