Journal of palliative medicine
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The physician orders for life-sustaining treatment (POLST) form allows seriously ill individuals to express their preferences for end-of-life treatments. Despite increased POLST use, little is known about the quality of completed forms. ⋯ We found 30.4% of POLST forms for nursing home residents were not complete or documented clinically contradictory treatment preferences. Improvement in the quality of POLST forms is needed.
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Review
Communication About Dying, Death, and Bereavement: A Systematic Review of Children's Literature.
Children's books have the potential to facilitate communication about death for children living with a serious illness and for children coping with the death of a loved one. ⋯ Storybooks can be a helpful tool to introduce communication about dying and death with children. Gaps exist in current children's literature to effectively enable children to reflect on their own dying process. A general summary of available books is provided to assist those caring for children and families facing end-of-life issues.
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The aim of this work was to investigate whether variables identified as likely to impact the experience of constipation in other clinical settings similarly affected the experiences of constipated palliative care patients. ⋯ This study suggests that the factor most likely to predict worse constipation symptoms was the duration that people had experienced problems. Further, those who perceived their constipation symptoms to be more severe had a poorer quality of life. More work is required to better define constipation risk factors and ways to best modify a patient's experiences.
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Hospice care is most appropriate when a patient no longer benefits from curative treatment and has limited life expectancy. These patients may suffer from any type of life-limiting illness, including end-stage cancer, end-stage heart disease, end-stage renal failure, AIDS, and Alzheimer's disease, among other illnesses. Patients are managed on their pain and symptoms and home hospice care manages these patients in the comfort of their own home, enabling patients to spend their last days with dignity and have a good quality of life. ⋯ With an increasing emphasis to encourage aging and dying in the community and more attention given to building up the home hospice industry's capacity and capability, it is important to understand the profile of the patients who have been utilizing home hospice services. This also helps to plan and develop similar services in other parts of the world.