Palliative medicine
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Palliative medicine · Jun 2021
'Traversing difficult terrain'. Advance care planning in residential aged care through multidisciplinary case conferences: A qualitative interview study exploring the experiences of families, staff and health professionals.
Advance care planning improves the quality of end-of-life care for older persons in residential aged care; however, its uptake is low. Case conferencing facilitates advance care planning. ⋯ While advance care planning is an important element of high quality care it involves significant emotional labour and burden for families, care staff and health professionals. It is not a simple administrative task to be completed, but a process that requires time and space for reflection and consensus-building to support well-considered decisions. Multidisciplinary case conferences support this process.
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Palliative medicine · Jun 2021
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudySingle early palliative care intervention added to usual oncology care for patients with advanced cancer: A randomized controlled trial (SENS Trial).
International oncology societies recommend early palliative care. Specific models to integrate early palliative care efficiently into clinical practice are debated. The authors designed a study to look at the quantitative and qualitative outcomes of an early palliative care intervention in oncological care to decrease stress and improve quality of life. ⋯ The addition of an early intervention to usual care for patients with advanced cancer did not improve distress or quality of life. Thus, patients may need more intensive early palliative care with continuous professional support to identify and address their palliative needs early.
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Palliative medicine · Jun 2021
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study"Song of Life": Results of a multicenter randomized trial on the effects of biographical music therapy in palliative care.
Awareness for the importance of psychological and spiritual needs in patients with terminal diseases has increased in recent years, but randomized trials on the effects of psychosocial interventions are still rare. ⋯ Our findings provide evidence that "Song of Life" is an effective and meaningful biographical music therapy intervention to facilitate psycho-spiritual integration in terminally ill patients.
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Palliative medicine · Jun 2021
ReviewToward a socio-spiritual approach? A mixed-methods systematic review on the social and spiritual needs of patients in the palliative phase of their illness.
Patients express a variety of needs, some of which are labeled social and spiritual. Without an in-depth exploration of patients' expressions of these needs, it is difficult to differentiate between them and allocate appropriate healthcare interventions. ⋯ What literature labels as social and spiritual needs shows great similarities and overlap. Instead of distinguishing social from spiritual needs based on patients' linguistic expressions, needs should always be explored in-depth. We propose a socio-spiritual approach that honors and preserves the multidimensionality of patients' needs and enables interdisciplinary teamwork to allocate patient-tailored care.