Palliative medicine
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Palliative medicine · Dec 2021
Changes in mortality patterns and place of death during the COVID-19 pandemic: A descriptive analysis of mortality data across four nations.
Understanding patterns of mortality and place of death during the COVID-19 pandemic is important to help provide appropriate services and resources. ⋯ Where people died changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, with an increase in deaths at home during and between pandemic waves. This has implications for planning and organisation of palliative care and community services. The extent to which these changes will persist longer term remains unclear. Further research could investigate whether this is reflected in other countries with high COVID-19 mortality.
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Palliative medicine · Dec 2021
Association between religious beliefs and discussions regarding advance care planning: A nationwide survey.
The relationship between advance care planning and religious beliefs, which are important for palliative care, is controversial in Western countries and has not been verified in Asian countries. ⋯ The results suggest that holding religious beliefs, especially in Japanese Buddhism and Christianity, facilitates advance care planning discussions among Japanese adults, and thus, may help health-care providers identify those prioritized for facilitating engagement in advance care planning, especially in palliative and spiritual care settings.
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Palliative medicine · Dec 2021
Operationalizing legal rights in end-of- life decision-making: A qualitative study.
For a patient's legal right to make end-of-life treatment decisions to be respected, health care practitioners, patients and their substitute decision-makers must know what rights exist and how to assert them (or support others to assert them). Yet very little is known about what enhances or obstructs the operationalization of legal rights from the perspective of patients, family members and substitute decision-makers. ⋯ In addition to enhancing legal literacy of community members and health practitioners about end-of-life decision-making, support such as open communication, advocacy and help with engaging with advanced care planning is needed to facilitate people operationalizing their legal rights, powers and duties. Palliative care and other support services should be more widely available to people both within and outside health systems.
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Palliative medicine · Dec 2021
Support needs and barriers to accessing support: Baseline results of a mixed-methods national survey of people bereaved during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a mass bereavement event which has profoundly disrupted grief experiences. Understanding support needs and access to support among people bereaved at this time is crucial to ensuring appropriate bereavement support infrastructure. ⋯ People bereaved during the pandemic have high levels of support needs alongside difficulties accessing support. We recommend increased provision and tailoring of bereavement services, improved information on support options and social/educational initiatives to bolster informal support and ameliorate isolation.
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Palliative medicine · Dec 2021
Case ReportsMonitoring the depth of palliative sedation by video-pupillometry: A case report.
Palliative sedation is sometimes interrupted by undesired arousals. Pupillometry has been used in anesthesiology to monitor pain and sedation but has never been used during palliative sedation. ⋯ Prospective studies are needed to confirm our findings. Pupillometry's acceptability should also be questioned from patient's, families', and caregivers' perspectives.