International journal of palliative nursing
-
Advance care planning (ACP) is a process being championed within health and social care, particularly since the publication of the UK Department of Health's 2008 End of Life Care Strategy. However, its implementation in dementia care is yet to be fully realised and can pose significant ethical and legal dilemmas for the generic and specialist workforce, the patient themselves, and their family or loved ones. Challenges may be attributable to inadequate communication, capacity issues, missed opportunities, and the perception that dementia is not a life-limiting illness. The aim of this paper is to highlight the benefits of ACP for individuals with dementia while appraising the recognised barriers to assist in developing some realistic recommendations for future practice.
-
To measure how comfortable hospice nurses in New Zealand are in conducting spiritual assessment and explore potentially associated factors. ⋯ These findings underscore the importance of training and show how nurses can be comfortable with and capable of assessing patient spirituality.
-
International expert consensus is that psychosocial intervention is likely to help advanced cancer patients and their family carers affected by weight loss and poor appetite. ⋯ This preliminary study of MAWE suggests that it provides benefits as a supportive intervention. Further testing is warranted using a more robust experimental design.
-
This paper describes the development of a tool for palliative care nurses to initiate and facilitate advance care planning (ACP) conversations in community palliative care practice. Seven community palliative care services located across Australia participated in a multi-site action research project. Data included participant observation, individual and focus group interviews with palliative care health professionals, and medical record audit. ⋯ From this framework a Conversation Starter Tool for ACP was developed. The Tool was then used in orientation and continuing nurse education programmes. It provided palliative care nurses the opportunity to introduce and progress ACP conversations.