Articles: palliative-care.
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Am J Hosp Palliat Care · Dec 2020
Students Practicing Interprofessional Collaboration in the Context of Hospice and Palliative Care.
Interprofessional education allows students to collaborate with students and professionals of multiple disciplines. An Interdisciplinary Palliative Care (IPC) Seminar, held in the Midwest, involves students from disciplines of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, social work, and chaplaincy. The curriculum of the seminar incorporates asynchronous and synchronous didactic presentations, experiential learning through group exercises and discussion, along with home visits by students in interdisciplinary dyads. ⋯ This descriptive study invited participants to take a pre- and postseminar online survey using the Interprofessional Socialization and Valuing Scale-21 (ISVS-21) to assess shifts in students' perceptions of interprofessional socialization and the value of collaborative health-care practice. In their pre-and postseminar scores, 71 participants reported they more strongly agreed with all items on the ISVS-21 after completing the seminar. The results from this study suggest the IPC Seminar is an effective educational model for advancing the value of interprofessional socialization and collaborative practice in hospice and palliative health-care.
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Observational Study
Identifying Palliative Patients in General Practice: Focusing on the Place of Death and the Vital Role of Specialized Home Palliative Care: An Observational Study.
Objectives: Specialist palliative care was introduced into the German health care system for patients at the end of life. The primary objective of this study was to assess whether the provision of specialist home palliative care (SHPC) for outpatients increased the likelihood of patients dying at home. Methods: We studied data collected in 2015 from a German statutory health insurance company covering 3.872 million people. We evaluated how many patients were identified as needing palliative care and whether these patients were able to stay at home until death. ⋯ The probability of dying at home increases already with the label "palliative patient" and gets stronger if care is provided by a specialist palliative care team. Conclusion: Most palliative patients are able to die at home. Palliative care teams are responsible for a small part of these patients. Despite the high symptom burden in this group, most are able to die at home.
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Palliative medicine · Dec 2020
Palliative care in the context of immune and targeted therapies: A qualitative study of bereaved carers' experiences in metastatic melanoma.
Immune and targeted therapies continue to transform treatment outcomes for those with metastatic melanoma. However, the role of palliative care within this treatment paradigm is not well understood. ⋯ Immune and targeted therapies have resulted in increased prognostic challenges. There is a need to engage, educate and support patients and carers to prepare and plan amid these challenges. Educational initiatives must focus on improving communication between patients, carers and clinicians; the differences between palliative and end-of-life care; and increased competency of clinicians in having goals-of-care discussions. Clinicians must recognise and communicate the benefit of collaborative palliative care to meet patient and family needs holistically and comprehensively.
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Palliative care is associated with improved survival and quality of life among patients with lung cancer; however, its influence on health-care utilization and quality of care is unclear. ⋯ Palliative care (particularly in outpatient settings) is associated with reduced health-care utilization at the end of life and may improve the quality of care among patients with advanced lung cancer. These findings support the role of palliative care as an important component of comprehensive cancer care and highlight the potential benefits of outpatient palliative care services.
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Palliative medicine · Dec 2020
End-of-life care for homeless people in shelter-based nursing care settings: A retrospective record study.
Homeless people experience multiple health problems and early mortality. In the Netherlands, they can get shelter-based end-of-life care, but shelters are predominantly focused on temporary accommodation and recovery. ⋯ End-of-life care for homeless persons residing in shelter-based nursing care settings is characterised and challenged by comorbidities, uncertain prognoses, complicated social circumstances and many transitions to other settings. Multilevel end-of-life care improvements, including increased interdisciplinary collaboration, are needed to reduce transitions and suffering of this vulnerable population at the end of life.