Free access. To evaluate the time course of “taking to bed” at the end of life and determine whether it differs according to age, sex, and condition leading to death.
Conversations about end of life choices can be difficult. However, a Staffordshire GP wants us to have these conversations to make sure we are all prepared for when someone dies.
As part of Dying Matters Week (13-19 May 2019), the NHS in Staffordshire is encouraging people to plan ahead and start a conversation with family members. By planning in advance, less pressure will be placed on loved ones at the end of someone’s life.
the need for palliative and end of life care for the oldest old is growing rapidly. Family carers often report they do not feel well supported; for better practice and policy, we need better understanding of their experiences and how to support them.. To read the full article, log in using your MPFT NHS OpenAthens details.
Carers of patients with palliative care needs require careful assessment and support to undertake their role effectively. The carer component of palliative care is embedded in complex situations that necessarily focus on the patient. To read the full article, log in using your MPFT NHS OpenAthens details.
This report begins to highlight and challenge professional reluctance to engage in conversations with patients about uncertainty, treatment ceilings, resuscitation status and death. It offers some ‘mythbusters’ to get physicians thinking and signposts to tools and educational resources to support physicians and other healthcare professionals.
Although Alzheimer disease and other dementias are life limiting, only a minority of these patients or their proxy decision makers participate in advance care planning. We describe end‐of‐life care preferences and acute care and hospice use in the last 6 months of life for persons enrolled in a comprehensive dementia care management program.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS Athens details. To access full-text: click “Log in/Register” (top right hand side). Click ‘Institutional Login’ then select 'OpenAthens Federation', then ‘NHS England’. Enter your Athens details to view the article.
GP surgeries will now be able to display a 'daffodil mark' as a sign of commitment to improving end of life care, as part of a new partnership between the Royal College of GPs and the terminal illness charity Marie Curie.
The mark, synonymous with the charity, is based on a new set of criteria called the Daffodil Standards – a set of eight quality improvement statements designed to support primary care teams in delivering care to patients living with an advanced, serious illness or at the end of their lives, and their loved ones.
Caring and supporting patients at the end of their lives comes with numerous challenges for healthcare professionals. One of the main challenges is how to communicate effectively with patients and those important to them. To read the full article, log in using your MPFT NHS OpenAthens details.
Activity participation may support clients in palliative care to maintain dignity and quality of life. Literature and policy documents state that occupational therapists should be part of the team in palliative care but provide limited guidance on how interventions should be employed. Thus, the aim was to describe occupational therapists’ experiences of enabling activity for seriously ill and dying clients. Open Access Article
Few studies have specifically assessed the scope, nature and challenges of palliative and end-of-life care in rural general practice. These knowledge gaps limit the development of evidence-based policies and services for patients in the last months of life. This study aimed to explore the perspectives of general practitioners (GPs) and other stakeholders on rural GPs’ involvement and challenges in providing palliative and end-of-life care in regional Australia. Open Access Article
Around the world, different models of paediatric palliative care have responded to the unique needs of children with life shortening conditions. However, research confirming their utility and impact is still lacking. This study compared patient-related outcomes and healthcare expenditures between those who received home-based paediatric palliative care and standard care. The quality of life and caregiver burden for patients receiving home-based paediatric palliative care were also tracked over the first year of enrolment to evaluate the service’s longitudinal impact.
Open Access Article
The charity Marie Curie is urging nurses to be advocates for terminally ill patients who may benefit from a fast-track service that helps them receive care at home.
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Book Review. It will be a useful read for any nurses caring for people at the end of their lives, especially when mental capacity is affected, or for nurses with a particular interest in ethics or decision-making at the end of life.
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To read a copy of the book in this review, please contact the library
Prevention of pressure ulcers (PUs) in end-of-life care is often problematic because both PUs and interventions to prevent them can cause suffering. The primary aim of this study was to identify and describe the different ways in which nurses understood unavoidable PUs in late palliative care. A second aim was to explore the expediency of the different levels of understanding.
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Implications for practice and research:
> Unmet learning needs exist among staff supporting people with intellectual disabilities at end of life and in bereavement, which should be addressed within care settings.
> There is evidence that partnership working between intellectual disability and palliative care services can enable the end-of-life care needs of people with intellectual disabilities to be more effectively assessed and addressed.
> Further studies are required to explore staff experiences in supporting people with intellectual disabilities in these sensitive issues.
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The aim of this study was to determine if community-based palliative care provided to people dying from non-cancer conditions was associated with reduced hospital costs in the last year of life and how this compared with people dying from cancer.
Open Access Article
When receiving palliative care, patients and their families experience altered life situations in which they must negotiate challenges in daily life, increased care and new roles. With limited time, they also experience emotional changes that relate to their uncertain future. Transitions experienced in such situations are often studied by focusing on individual aspects, which are synthesized in the following study. The aim was to conduct a qualitative meta-synthesis to explore the experiences patients and their families gain during transitions in palliative care circumstances.
Open Access Article