Articles: palliative-care.
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American family physician · Jun 1993
ReviewStrontium-89 therapy for painful osseous metastatic prostate and breast cancer.
Strontium-89 chloride is a radiopharmaceutical that localizes to actively forming new bone, such as metastatic bone lesions from prostate and breast cancer. It provides effective systemic endo-osseous local radiation therapy to these painful lesions. Strontium-89 will soon be available to physicians in the United States for use in the palliative management of metastatic bone pain.
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Oncology nursing forum · Jun 1993
The challenging experience of palliative care support-team nursing.
The purpose of this study was to document the experience of palliative care nursing as a part of a multidisciplinary support team. Data were obtained from two palliative care support-team nurses. Each nurse privately recorded on audiotape any reflections about particularly meaningful aspects of her daily work experience; in-depth interviews with the two nurses together also were used for data collection. ⋯ This effort emerged as being vital to the nurses preserving their own integrity, both personally and professionally. The findings of this study may help all professionals who provide palliative care to better understand the nature of their work, themselves, and each other. Strategies to promote understanding may help to reduce the amount of time and energy that professionals must dedicate to preservation of integrity.
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Referral patterns to a palliative nursing team are examined within the context of the developing role of the service. Reasons for referral are identified and a checklist developed to encourage specificity in statement of need on referral. Comparison is made with the assessment of the Macmillan nurse on assessment. ⋯ There was no correlation between the referrers' perceived needs and the Macmillan nurses' assessments on visiting. The literature supports the need for more explicit referral criteria based on needs assessment. There are implications for greater awareness of roles, better communication regarding intervention, and organizational review.
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Ann Oto Rhinol Laryn · May 1993
Validation of World Health Organization guidelines for pain relief in head and neck cancer. A prospective study.
In a prospective study of 167 patients with head and neck cancer, we assessed the causes and mechanisms of pain, as well as the efficacy and side effects of analgesic treatment, along World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. The majority of patients had pain caused by cancer (83%) and/or treatment (28%), 4% had pain due to debility, and 7% had pain unrelated to cancer. Palliative antineoplastic treatment was performed in 32% of patients. ⋯ The treatment proved to be very successful, as severe pain was experienced only during 5% of the observation period. In the absence of serious side effects, the most frequent symptoms observed were insomnia, dysphagia, anorexia, constipation, and nausea. The use of analgesic and adjuvant drugs along WHO guidelines to treat pain in head and neck cancer is highly effective and relatively safe.