Palliative Care News and Research

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Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual.

Palliative nursing's role during COVID-19 pandemic and in future health crisis

As a rapid influx of patients overwhelmed health systems during the coronavirus pandemic, palliative nurses played dual roles supporting patients, patient families, and colleagues.

14 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

Researchers propose new ICU admission model

The emergency triage protocol is used in catastrophic medicine situations, when the needs surpass healthcare resources, in the event of natural disasters, multiple accidents or terrorist attacks.

19 Jun 2020

Study finds carboplatin-paclitaxel as the optimal chemotherapy for anal cancer

Up to now, patients with inoperable anal cancer, a rare disease, have not had a standard-of-care treatment; palliative care has been the routine for them.

19 Jun 2020

Study: Vitamin D can reduce side effects associated with chemotherapy

As many cancer patients will confirm, the chemotherapy prescribed to kill the disease is often more debilitating than the cancer itself, with a range of horrendous side effects.

18 Jun 2020

New flag on patient records can improve care for people with learning disabilities

Healthcare for people with a learning disability can be improved by a new flag on patient records, a pilot scheme has shown.

18 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

Study aims to bring relief for patients removed from ventilators at end of life

A paper recently published online in the journal Chest reports on a study of the palliative ventilator withdrawal (PVW) procedure performed in intensive care units at end of life.

1 Jun 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

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

New app to be developed to protect carers, support workers during COVID-19 pandemic

Three University of Stirling projects will play a key role in safeguarding carers and support workers during the COVID-19 pandemic - and assessing the impact the experience has on them.

7 May 2020

Palliative care helped family face ‘the awful, awful truth’

Seattle mourned the news: Elizabeth and Robert Mar died of COVID-19 within a day of each other. They would have celebrated 50 years of marriage in August.

5 May 2020

Scientists launch clinical trial to test the efficacy of HIV drug against COVID-19 infection

A team of scientists from St. Michael's Hospital, Sinai Health and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre have launched a clinical trial to understand whether an existing drug used for HIV treatment and prevention may work to prevent COVID-19 infection.

28 Apr 2020

Emergency-style palliative care needs to implemented for severely ill COVID-19 patients

Emergency-style palliative care needs to implemented to meet the needs of Covid-19 patients who wouldn't benefit from a ventilator say researchers.

17 Apr 2020

COVID-19: Guidance to support healthcare staff having difficult conversations about end of life

A Loughborough University academic is providing guidance to clinicians who are likely to be having - and training people who will have - difficult conversations with patients suffering from COVID-19 or those closest to them.

3 Apr 2020

What are the challenges facing palliative care during COVID-19?

The current COVID-19 outbreak affecting 180 countries and territories across six continents is taking its toll on healthcare systems globally. In particular, there is growing pressure on and concern for triage and palliative care departments. Now, researchers from the University of Toronto, Université Laval, Québec, and the University of Ottawa have published a new study titled, “Pandemic palliative care: beyond ventilators and saving lives,” in the latest issue of the journal Canadian Medical Association Journal that looks to address the challenges in providing palliative care during a viral pandemic.

1 Apr 2020

NCCN publishes recommendations for assessing quality improvements in cancer care

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network has published a curated list of high-impact measures for assessing quality improvements in cancer care.

10 Mar 2020

FAIR Health launches website feature to aid shared decision making for palliative care

Today FAIR Health launched a groundbreaking website feature that combines clinical and cost information to support seriously and chronically ill patients and their caregivers in the process of shared decision making with clinicians for three palliative care scenarios.