Palliative care strategies offer guidance to clinicians and comfort for COVID-19 patient and families

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Heart & Lung, 2020, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 227-228

Feder; Akgün; Kathleen M.; Schulman-Green, Dena

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused a fast-moving, highly distressing global health crisis. Patients of all ages face daunting illness while healthcare systems struggle to meet the growing demand for services. The need for palliative care (PC) is likely to be substantial, and yet, PC specialists are in short supply. This article examines the special considerations in applying core PC principles during the COVID-19 crisis as well as targeted strategies to support patients and families.

Constructing stability - a classic grounded theory of next-of-kin in palliative cancer care

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BMC Palliative Care, 2020, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 1-9

Werkander, Harstade; Sandgren, Anna

Being next-of-kin to someone with cancer requiring palliative care involves a complex life situation. Changes in roles and relationships might occur and the next-of-kin thereby try to adapt by being involved in the ill person’s experiences and care even though they can feel unprepared for the care they are expected to provide. The aim of this study was to develop a classic grounded theory of next-of-kin in palliative cancer care. The theory shows the complexities of being next-of-kin to someone receiving palliative care, while striving to construct stability.

Digital health technology in palliative care: friend or foe?

Progress in Palliative Care, 2019 27(4) p.145-146

Mills, Jason

In this editorial, Jason Mills considers whether, when it comes to health and promoting quality of life in palliative care settings, there's a meaningful role for technology—and is the use of technology in contexts of life-limiting illness truly congruent with the humanistic tenets of hospice and palliative care?

Fulltext available in Progress in Palliative Care

A palliative care model and conceptual approach suited to clinical malignant haematology

Palliative Medicine, 2019 33(5) p.483-485
Button, Elise; Bolton, Michael; Chan, Raymond J; et al

In this opinion piece the authors discuss a palliative care model and conceptual approach that are well suited to clinical malignant haematology and can lead to best practice palliative and end-of-life care for this unique population.  Palliative care is still integrated from diagnosis and tailored around the individual’s needs, but, in this model, can lead to death and bereavement care or cure and survivorship care. This model demonstrates the evolution of the palliative care model from terminal care to individualised care that is responsive to patients’ needs and unpredictable illness trajectories. 

Fulltext available in Palliative Medicine

The use of humor in palliative care: a systematic literature review

American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Care 2018, 35 (10): 1342-1354
Miguel Ángel Cuervo Pinna, Vinita Mahtani-Chugani, Miguel Ángel Sánchez Correas, Alvaro Sanz Rubiales

The acceptance of the use of humour by terminal stage patients and health-care professionals has not been studied in depth and is not free from controversy. The aim of the study was to understand the significance, appropriateness, and pertinence of the use of humour in palliative care and to analyse its applicability.

On healing and palliative care

European Journal of Palliative Care, 2018 25(3)  p.134-137

Lucas, Viv

Modern medicine has become so entrenched with the requirement for evidence, skills, competencies, outcomes and conformity that the concept of healing has been almost entirely forgotten. Viv Lucas investigates healing and what it means both as a concept generally and to palliative care specifically.

Fulltext available in European Journal of Palliative Care

Available in print in Arthur Rank Hospice, Cambridge

Supporting self-management in palliative care throughout the cancer care trajectory

Current Opinion in Supportive and Palliative Care, 2018 12(3) p.299-307

Schulman-Green, Dena; Brody, Abraham; Gilbertson-White, Stephanie; Whittemore, Robin; McCorkle, Ruth

In this review, the authors consider the complementary relationship of self-management and palliative care and how they support living with cancer as a chronic illness. Recent studies provide evidence of support among patients, family caregivers and healthcare professionals for integration of self-management interventions into palliative cancer care across the care trajectory, including the phases of curative care, palliative care, end-of-life care and bereavement.

People must make plans for their digital legacies (news)

E-Hospice, 5th June 2018

A survey carried out by a hospice in the West Midlands revealed that more than 40 per cent of people did not know what a digital legacy was, and of those that did, only 12 per cent had planned what to do with all or some of their legacy.

You can read more about the results and find out what a digital legacy is on the e-hospice website

Framework for complexity in palliative care: A qualitative study with patients, family carers and professionals

Palliative Medicine, 2018, 32 (6), p 1078-1090
Pask, Sophie; Pinto, Cathryn; Bristowe, Katherine; et al

The aim is to explore palliative care stakeholders' views on what makes a patient more and less complex and insights on capturing complexity at patient level.

Patient-centred goal setting in a hospice: a comparative case study of how health practitioners understand and use goal setting in practice

International Journal of Palliative Nursing;  2018, 24 (3) 115-122
Boa, Sally; Duncan, Edward; Haraldsdottir, Erna; Wyke, Sally

This was a comparative case study of 10 healthcare practitioners in one hospice in Scotland.  From the results, the authors note that goal setting focused around what was seen as important from the health practitioner's perspective, rather than being patient-centred. They concluded that a more explicit, person-centred goal setting process may support practitioners more consistently in helping patients to identify their priorities and enhance their quality of life.

Economics of palliative and end of life care (special issue)

Palliative Medicine, 2017 31(4) 

This issue of Palliative Medicine contains a range of articles exploring various aspects of the economics of providing and funding palliative and end of life care.  Among the topics covered are:

• The use of Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QUALYs) in cost-effectiveness analyses in palliative care
• The contributions of family caregivers at end of life: a national post-bereavement census survey of cancer carers' hours of care and expenditures
• Costs of formal and informal care in the last year of life for patients in receipt of specialist palliative care

Fulltext available in Palliative Medicine

Available in print in the Arthur Rank Hospice Library, Cambridge

Symptomatic management of neurodegenerative disease in the elderly

Progress in Palliative Care, 2017, 25(1) 11-16

Oliver, David J; Veronese, Simone

An overview of the symptoms and psychological and social issues experienced by elderly patients with neurodegenerative diseases and the value of a palliative care approach throughout the disease trajectory for patients, families and carers.

Fulltext available in Progress in Palliative Care

Available in print in Arthur Rank Hospice Library, Cambridge

Falls toolkit

Hospice UK, 2016

Hospice UK has updated its online toolkit aimed at managing and preventing falls.

https://www.hospiceuk.org/what-we-offer/clinical-and-care-support/clinical-resources

Defining the palliative care patient: its challenges and implications for service delivery

BMJ Support Palliat Care 2015; vol/is 5/4, p 46-52

Helen Mitchell, Simon Noble, Ilora Finlay and Annmarie Nelson

Within the UK, general practitioners (GPs) are required to maintain a register of palliative patients under their care. We explored GPs' views of what defines a palliative care patient in the context of identifying clinical service needs.  Achieving health policy targets which require identification of palliative patients will continue to be a challenge until a workable and reliable definition of the term ‘palliative’ is agreed upon.

Available in print in Arthur Rank Hospice Library, Brookfields Hospital

'The Road Ahead': NCPC launches official strategy for 2015-18

NCPC has published its official strategy for 2015-18.

The new strategy has been agreed by NCPC's Board of Trustees and affirms its vision for palliative and end of life care, demonstrates how it can play an important role in shaping the future, and sets out the areas in which it will work to achieve these goals.

In the three years to March 2018 The Road Ahead will shape all NCPC's activities, including its work leading the Dying Matters Coalition.

The road ahead - National Council for Palliative Care Strategy 2015-2018

Published May 2015

The new strategy has been agreed by the NCPC's Board of Trustees and affirms their vision for palliative and end of life care over the next three years, demonstrates the role they can play in shaping the future and sets out the areas in which they will work to achieve these goals.

The strategy identifies four priority areas of work:

• Changing attitudes
• Changing behaviour
• Improving care and support
• Improving evidence and intelligence

Follow this link for the strategy

Young adult palliative care: challenges and opportunities

American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Feb 2015, vol. 32, no. 1, p. 101-111

Clark, Jennifer K., Fasciano, Karen

This review examines the current data pertinent to young adult palliative care and discusses the challenges and opportunities where palliative medicine can enhance the care provided to this growing and vulnerable population. 

  

The third wave of palliative care

Journal of Palliative Care, Dec 2014, vol. 30, no. 4, p. 287-290

Cellarius, Victor

In 1994, in an article that distilled a collection of discussions that had been simmering over the previous decade, David Clark asked whether hospice-palliative care was entering a second wave. At the time, hospice-palliative care was becoming bigger, more medical and technical, more research- and evidence-based, and more bureaucratic. The discussions were deeply evaluative ones, often pitting the original hospice-palliative care focus on the meaning of dying, life, and death, against the more recent focus on symptom relief and patient-guided quality of life. The question underlying those discussions has reappeared, for it seems that palliative care is entering a new wave once again.

Full text available in Journal of Palliative Care

Palliative and end of life care Priority Setting Partnership (PeolcPSP): Putting patients, carers and clinicians at the heart of palliative and end of life care research (report)

Marie Curie Cancer Care, January 2015

Marie Curie Cancer Care have published a report revealing the top 10 most important unanswered questions or evidence uncertainties in palliative and end of life care, identified and prioritised by patients, carers and health and social care professionals, to inform the future of palliative and end of life care research.

Follow this link for the full report

How to conduct research in an independent hospice: practical tips and advice

European Journal of Palliative Care, 2014, Vol/iss 21/5 (236-9)

Paul Perkins, Rebecca Day, Julie Hapeshi, Lorraine Dixon and Rudo Nyakuhwa

Hospices, as centres of excellence, have a duty to drive and initiate research if they are to provide high-quality palliative care but they do face a number of challenges. In this paper, the authors use their experience at Sue Ryder to provide some insight into how independent hospices can become active in conducting research.

Full text available in European Journal of Palliative Care

Available in print in Arthur Rank House Library, Brookfields Hospital