Articles: palliative-care.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2024
End-of-life care: A retrospective cohort study of older people who died within 48 hours of presentation to the emergency department.
To describe the characteristics of, and care provided to, older people who died within 48 h of ED presentation. ⋯ Identification of patients at end-of-life (EoL) is not always straightforward; consider recent reduction in independence and recent ED visits/hospital admissions. System-based strategies that span pre-hospital, ED and in-patient care are recommended to facilitate EoL pathway implementation and care continuity.
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Palliative medicine · Feb 2024
ReviewPosttraumatic growth in palliative care settings: A scoping review of prevalence, characteristics and interventions.
Posttraumatic growth refers to positive psychological change following trauma. However, there is a need to better understand the experience of posttraumatic growth in the palliative care setting as well as the availability and efficacy of interventions that target this phenomenon. ⋯ Posttraumatic growth is an emerging concept in palliative care where although the number of studies is small, early indications suggest that interventions fostering posttraumatic growth may contribute to improvements in psychological wellbeing in people receiving palliative care.
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Many people on both sides of the debate to legalise physician-hastened death are motivated by compassion and a desire to provide better end of life care for others. Assisted dying may include euthanasia and/or assisted suicide (EAS). It is legal in some jurisdictions and under debate in others including Ireland. ⋯ Progressive expansion of eligibility for EAS has occurred over time in the Netherlands, Belgium and Canada. Given the complexity of assessing coercion, the risks to persons in vulnerable groups (including older persons, persons with mental health conditions and persons with disabilities), the progressive expansion of eligibility for EAS, the lack of safety and the undermining of suicide prevention strategies, the current law is most protective of persons in vulnerable groups in the interest of social justice. Person-centred and compassionate care needs be prioritised with greater access and equitable access to primary and specialist palliative care and mental health care for persons with incurable and terminal illnesses and support for caregivers allowing patients to die naturally with optimised symptom control.
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Palliative medicine · Feb 2024
Long-term bereavement outcomes in family members of those who died in acute care hospitals before and during the first wave of COVID-19: A cohort study.
Severe grief is highly distressing and prevalent up to 1 year post-death among people bereaved during the first wave of COVID-19, but no study has assessed changes in grief severity beyond this timeframe. ⋯ Severe grief is a substantial source of psychological morbidity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, persisting more than a year post-death. Our findings highlight an acute need for effective and scalable means of addressing severe grief.