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Study looks at place of death for patients with COVID-19

Patients who died from COVID in 2020 were almost 12 times more likely to die in a medical facility than patients who died from any cause in 2018, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.

13 Jul 2020

States allow in-person nursing home visits as families charge residents die ‘of broken hearts’

States across the country are beginning to roll back heart-wrenching policies instituted when the coronavirus pandemic began and allow in-person visits at nursing homes and assisted living centers, offering relief to frustrated families.

13 Jul 2020

UBC study provides evidence of preserved hearing at the end of life

Hearing is widely thought to be the last sense to go in the dying process. Now UBC researchers have evidence that some people may still be able to hear while in an unresponsive state at the end of their life.

8 Jul 2020

‘I couldn’t let her be alone’: A peaceful death amid the COVID scourge

As her mother lay dying in a Southern California hospital in early May, Elishia Breed was home in Oregon, 800 miles away, separated not only by the distance, but also by the cruelty of the coronavirus.

6 Jul 2020

The gut shields the liver from fructose-induced lipogenesis

After one consumes food or a beverage containing fructose, the gastrointestinal system, or gut, helps to shield the liver from damage by breaking down the sugar before it reaches the liver, according to a new multi-center study led by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

29 Jun 2020

Homelessness associated with hospital readmission rates

Patients who are homeless are far more likely than housed individuals to be readmitted to a hospital within 30 or 90 days of their discharge, according to a new multi-center analysis of inpatient data from Florida, Massachusetts and New York.

18 Jun 2020

Study: Nearly 10% of patients continue to use opioids more than 90 days after heart surgery

Nearly 10 percent of patients who are prescribed opioid medications following heart surgery will continue to use opioids more than 90 days after the procedure, according to a new study led by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

17 Jun 2020

Researchers develop hospice video educational tool for cancer patients

An educational video about hospice care can provide valuable information for patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers, improve perceptions of this quality form of care at the end of life, and increase its use.

8 Jun 2020

Majority of hospitalized patients with advanced cancer have functional impairment

New research from Mass General Cancer Center, published in the June 2020 issue of JNCCN--Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, found 40.2% of hospitalized patients with advanced, incurable cancer were functionally impaired at the time of admission, meaning they needed assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs) like walking, bathing, getting dressed, or other routine tasks. Patients with functional impairment also had higher rates of pain, depression, and anxiety, and were more likely to have longer hospital stays and worse survival.

8 Jun 2020

New immunotherapy for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer shows promise in clinical trial

A new type of immunotherapy treatment for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is being tested by Missak Haigentz, Jr., MD, medical director of hematology and oncology for Atlantic Health System.

30 May 2020

Identifying optimal vasopressor treatment for nontraumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage

Results of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) study assessing the most commonly used medications for raising blood pressure in patients with nontraumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), a rare type of stroke, have been published in Neurosurgical Focus by scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

30 May 2020

First-ever oncology hospital-at-home program shows improved patient outcomes

Researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah (U of U) presented the first outcomes evaluation of an adult oncology hospital-at-home program today at the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting.

30 May 2020

First-ever oncology hospital-at-home program improves patient outcomes, reduces hospitalizations

Researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah (U of U) presented the first outcomes evaluation of an adult oncology hospital-at-home program today at the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting.

29 May 2020

Oncologists highlight the need for more palliative care training

Oncologists who practice and teach at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center are calling on medical oncology training programs to invest substantially more time educating physicians about palliative care and how to talk to patients about "bad news."

28 May 2020

My mother died of the coronavirus. It’s time she was counted.

We recently received the death certificate for my mother, who died May 4 in an assisted living facility near New York City. "Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome" was the primary cause. And the secondary — no surprise — was "suspected COVID-19."

27 May 2020

Researchers are taking inventory of drugs used to treat COVID-19

With doctors and researchers around the world searching for effective treatments for COVID-19, many drugs approved to treat other diseases are being used in hopes that they'll be effective against the virus, a use that's known as "off-label."

27 May 2020

Study highlights the benefits of palliative care for heart failure patients

Palliative care is valuable for heart failure patients, and, for those who are hospitalized, it can significantly lower the risk of repeated hospital admissions and the need for invasive procedures such as mechanical ventilation and defibrillator implantation, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open-access journal of the American Heart Association.

27 May 2020

Bringing ‘Poogie’ home: Hospice in the time of COVID-19

After she landed in the hospital with a broken hip, Parkinson’s disease and the coronavirus, 84-year-old Dorothy “Poogie” Wyatt Shields made a request of her children: “Bring me home.”

26 May 2020

Does HIV infection increase the severity of COVID-19?

A new study by researchers at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine and published on the preprint server medRxiv* in May 2020 reports that being infected with HIV at the time of acquiring COVID-19 does not significantly increase the severity of illness or the risk of complications.

13 May 2020

Keeping the COVID plague at bay: How California is protecting older veterans

Dr. Vito Imbasciani has been at war with viruses since he was 5. Growing up near the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York, he contracted polio in 1952 and couldn't walk for two months. In medical school in Vermont 30 years later, he witnessed AIDS steal the lives of otherwise healthy gay men.

11 May 2020