Journal of palliative medicine
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The Charter of the Rights of the Dying Child was formulated as a professional guide for caring the child in the final stages. The study examines the nurses' degree of agreement with the Charter's principles and their perception of the implementation of those principles in hospital. ⋯ This study highlights the value of the Charter of the Rights of the Dying Child as a reference guideline for nurses working in pediatric hospitals. Better training is important to improve the nurse's communication skills and the pediatric palliative care should be offered to all families that have a child with incurable disease mostly in the end of life.
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Automating conversation analysis in the natural clinical setting is essential to scale serious illness communication research to samples that are large enough for traditional epidemiological studies. Our objective is to automate the identification of pauses in conversations because these are important linguistic targets for evaluating dynamics of speaker involvement and turn-taking, listening and human connection, or distraction and disengagement. ⋯ ML is a valid method for automatically identifying Conversational Pauses in the natural acoustic setting of inpatient serious illness conversations.
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Observational Study
Discrepancies between Reasons of Palliative Care Team Consultation and Palliative Care Team Activities.
Palliative care team (PCT) is a common type of palliative care services. However, distress in cancer patients may be underestimated by hospital staff. Reasons for PCT consultation may be inconsistent with patients' actual needs. ⋯ Delirium and the need for family and decision-making support were underrecognized by hospital staff. PCT intervention for CRF and depression was often withheld because of very late referral. Appropriate timing of PCT consultations is important. Providing educational opportunities for hospital staff to comprehensively assess patient's multidimensional distress is needed.
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Case Reports
Craving Behavior from Opioid Addiction Controlled with Olanzapine in an Advanced Cancer Patient: A Case Report.
Opioid addiction, although uncommon in cancer patients, can be a significant challenge for optimal pain management in certain patients. We present a case of a 59-year-old man with advanced colon cancer whose compulsive craving for the buccal tablet of fentanyl citrate (BTFC) was improved with the use of olanzapine. He was hospitalized for abdominal pain caused by disease progression. ⋯ The pain was well controlled to numeric rating scale 1 or 2 without cravings for BTFC. Craving behavior as a result of opioid addiction may be controlled with olanzapine. Further prospective studies on this issue are warranted.