Search results for "Palliative care."
showing 10 items of 329 documents
Improving End-of-Life Care in Hospitals
2013
Objectives: To explore and document the experiences and expectancies of bereaved family members concerning the end-of-life (EOL) care of their deceased relative in a general hospital setting. Methods: Cross-sectional study using a questionnaire that included open-ended questions. Free-text answers were evaluated with qualitative content analysis. A total of 270 family members provided information about improvements in inpatient care. Results: Families described structural deficiencies. Furthermore, they requested a more holistic patient health care beyond medical treatment and expressed the wish for more professional support for families. Discussion: The view of bereaved families confirmed …
Spinal Instability and the Issue of Bracing and Bed Rest.
2019
Nearly 20% of cancer patients develop symptomatic spine metastases. Metastatic spine tumors are most commonly extradural tumors that grow quickly and often cause persistent pain, weakness, paresthesias, urinary/bowel dysfunction, and/or paralysis. Surgical intervention aims to achieve more effective pain management, preserve/restore neurological function, provide local tumor control, and stabilize the spinal column. The desired result of treatment is ultimately to improve a patient's quality of life. Neurosurgeons employ multiple decision frameworks and grading scales to assess the need and effectiveness of a variety of surgical interventions ranging from minimally to maximally invasive. Li…
Transitions between care settings after enrollment in a palliative care service in Italy: a retrospective analysis.
2013
This study was a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data that aimed to map patients’ care transitions following admission to a specialist palliative care service in Italy called Antea Centre. Patients’ data was extracted from the Antea local database from 2007 to 2011. External transitions were defined as a change in the setting of care, with the patient no longer being cared for by Antea staff. Internal transitions were defined as a change in the setting of care, with the care still being provided by Antea staff. A total of 1123 patients out of 5313 admitted to the palliative service (21%) experienced transitions. Patients who experienced no transitions after their admissio…
Community detection-based deep neural network architectures: A fully automated framework based on Likert-scale data
2020
[EN] Deep neural networks (DNNs) have emerged as a state-of-the-art tool in very different research fields due to its adaptive power to the decision space since they do not presuppose any linear relationship between data. Some of the main disadvantages of these trending models are that the choice of the network underlying architecture profoundly influences the performance of the model and that the architecture design requires prior knowledge of the field of study. The use of questionnaires is hugely extended in social/behavioral sciences. The main contribution of this work is to automate the process of a DNN architecture design by using an agglomerative hierarchical algorithm that mimics th…
2 Caregiver burden and health status perception of family caregivers of patients receiving palliative care at home
2020
Introduction The aim of this study was to explore the repercussions associated with caregiving of patients who receive palliative care at home due to an oncological disease through the assessment of the health status self-perception in the last year, the presence of anxiety and depressive symptoms and the assessment of caregiving burden. Method Design: Descriptive, cross-sectional study. Sample: family caregivers of patients with oncological disease who are under the follow-up of a home palliative care program hospital-based. Period: July 2015 and December 2016. Analysis: descriptive statistics. Questionnaires: Goldberg anxiety and depression scale; Zarit Caregiver Overload Scale in reduced…
Esophageal cancer: Clinical Practice Guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up
2010
Esophageal cancer: Clinical Practice Guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up M. Stahl, W. Budach, H.-J. Meyer & A. Cervantes On behalf of the ESMO Guidelines Working Group* Department of Medical Oncology and Centre of Palliative Care, Kliniken Essen-Mitte, Essen; Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf; Department of Surgery, Stadt Klinikum Solingen, Germany; Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, INCLIVA, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Supportive and Palliative care
2021
The definition of palliative and supportive care is often overwhelming and may be confused in common clinical practice. Supportive care is the multiprofessional attention to the individual’s overall physical, psychosocial, spiritual, and cultural needs and should be available at all stages of the illness. Palliative care shares the same objectives of supportive care, and some authors consider it in the advanced stages of disease. Actually it is important to carry out all these interventions from the earlier phases of disease to improve patient quality of life, to prevent therapy discontinuation for side effects, and hence to an optimization of outcomes. Quality of life is a heterogeneous co…
The risks of using continuous deep palliative sedation within the context of euthanasia
2016
Although palliative care is one of the main arguments among the opponents of euthanasia, the individual medical activities implemented within it are not always evaluated unequivocally. Considering that patient in such care centres arrives mainly at the last stages of the disease when intensive treatments are no longer able to help, to reduce discomfort and relieve pain caused by the disease, analgesic means can be used that can shorten the patient's life expectancy and cause death. Such undesirable consequences can be seen in the deep and continuous palliative sedation, which not only is the last resort for pain prevention process, but also is still quite debatable medical and legal doctrin…
Conversion ratios for opioid switching in the treatment of cancer pain: a systematic review
2011
In this paper we describe the results of a systematic search of the literature on conversion ratios during opioid switching. This is part of a project of the European Palliative Care Research Collaboration to update the European Association for Palliative Care recommendations for the use of opioid analgesics in the treatment of cancer pain. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they involved adult patients with chronic cancer pain, contained data on opioid conversion ratios, were prospective and were written in English. Thirty-one studies were identified and included. The majority of the studies had methodological flaws and were not designed to explore or demonstrate equianalgesic dose da…
Attitudes Toward Euthanasia Among Polish Physicians, Nurses and People Who Have No Professional Experience with the Terminally Ill
2013
Euthanasia is an issue that generates an extensive social debate. Euthanasia is generally classified as either active or passive. The former is usually defined as taking specific steps to cause the patient’s death, while the latter is described as withdrawal of medical treatment with the deliberate intention of bringing the patient’s life to an end. The dispute on euthanasia involves a multitude of aspects including religious, legal, cultural, ethical, medical, and spiritual issues. The purpose of the present study was to examine the views of medical professionals toward the highly controversial issue of euthanasia. Accordingly, the research has been conducted among a group of Polish nurses…