Articles: palliative-care.
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We propose that the palliative care team response will occur in two ways: first, communication and second, symptom management. Our experience with discussing goals of care with the family of a COVID-positive patient highlighted some expected and unexpected challenges. We describe these challenges along with recommendations for approaching these conversations. We also propose a framework for proactively mobilizing the palliative care workforce to aggressively address goals of care in all patients, with the aim of reducing the need for rationing of resources.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jul 2020
Applying Palliative Care Principles to Communicate with Children about COVID-19.
Children are seeing rapid changes to their routines and facing an unpredictable future. Palliative care teams may consider expanding their communication training and skill sets to help families consider caring ways to communicate with their children and grandchildren about the coronavirus. Palliative care teams are wise to encourage families to ground their communication with children on key values: honesty and trust, self-compassion, safety, sensitivity, connection, preparedness, community building, recognition of death as a part of the life cycle, and legacy.
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Dtsch. Med. Wochenschr. · Jul 2020
Review[Basic Knowledge of Drug Pain Therapy in the Palliative Situation].
This review provides an overview of the basic knowledge of drug pain therapy in the palliative situation. Pain is one of the main symptoms in 60 to 90 % of cancer patients. Pain also develops with neurological and other diseases that occur in end-of-life situations. ⋯ Rapid release opioids should be used for cancer breakthrough pain. Transdermal opioid applications are recommended for swallowing disorders, but usually not to initiate pain control. An opioid switch can be performed if side effects such as hallucinations for the selected opioid are more pronounced than the pain reduction.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jul 2020
Which Melbourne metropolitan areas are vulnerable to COVID-19 based on age, disability and access to health services? Using spatial analysis to identify service gaps and inform delivery.
Aging adults (65+) with disability are especially vulnerable to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and on contracting, they are a cohort most likely to require palliative care. Therefore, it is very important that health services-particularly health services providing palliative care-are proximately available. Treating the Melbourne metropolitan area as a case study, a spatial analysis was conducted to clarify priority areas with a significantly high percentage and number of aging adults (65+) with disability and high barriers to accessing primary health services. ⋯ The geographic dispersion of areas with people vulnerable to COVID-19 with poor access to palliative care and health services is clarified. Unique methods of health service delivery are required to ensure that vulnerable populations in underserviced metropolitan areas receive prompt and adequate care. The spatial methodology used can be implemented in different contexts to support evidence-based COVID-19 and pandemic palliative care service decisions.
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Retrospective study. ⋯ 3.