On the Value of Social Work in Palliative Care
by Vickie Leff (@VickieLeff)Another year, another study proving the value of the palliative care social worker. Edmonds et al (2021) found that when a social worker was involved in a palliative care consultation, whole-person care components were more likely to be addressed, including addressing psychological (82% vs 18%) and spiritual needs (92% vs 8%) and documenting advance directives (90% vs 10%). This adds to what we already knew: involvement of social work impacts quality of care and patient satisfaction (Auerbach, 2007; O ’Donnell et al., 2018).It surprises me that despite much research and team role development, ...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - March 22, 2021 Category: Palliative Care Tags: hospice leff palliative care social work social worker Source Type: blogs
Palliative Care Social Worker Infographic
(Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog)
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - March 22, 2021 Category: Palliative Care Tags: leff social work social worker Source Type: blogs
Coping With Older Adults Who Won ’t Accept In-Home Caregivers
Photo credit Matteo Vistascca
...I’m not the first family caregiver to struggle with getting a senior to accept home care. Families hire these services to provide valuable respite time and quality care for seniors, but what is a caregiver to do when their loved one refuses to cooperate with this new addition to their care plan?
Continue reading on Agingcare for insight into why some older adults become so rigid and refuse in-home care:
Purchase Minding Our Elders: Caregivers Share Their Personal Stories – paperback or ebook
General caregiving or incontinence questions? We’re here to help with ASK CAROL.
Egos...
Source: Minding Our Elders - March 18, 2021 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
What Remains of Edith Finch? - A Video Game Review
by Matthew Tyler (@PalliDad)Fortunately for me, the pandemic has not interfered with my life-long hobby: video games. I finally got around to playingWhat Remains of Edith Finch, a game that received high praise for its short but engrossing Lovecraftian-esque narrative. What I experienced was a surprisingly insightful exploration of humanity ’s relationship with death.Coincidentally, I had just readBJ Miller ’s opinion piece “What is Death?” in The New York Times and was struck by the parallels between it and What Remains. This game illustrates how one may “fold death into our lives,” and what can happen when we...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - March 15, 2021 Category: Palliative Care Tags: game Tyler video games Source Type: blogs
Are You Confused About the Difference Between Palliative Care and Hospice Care?
This reader's mom has many health problems and is nearing end-of-life care. She doesn't understand palliative care and what the difference is between that and hospice.
Continue reading on Egosancares Blog to learn about the differences between the two services:
Purchase Minding Our Elders: Caregivers Share Their Personal Stories – paperback or ebook
General caregiving or incontinence questions? We’re here to help with ASK CAROL.
Egosan wants to help you live your life fully: Try Egosan premium underwear for discrete, dignified protection. For 20% off your first order on Amazon use promo Code: 20CareGivers.
***...
Source: Minding Our Elders - March 15, 2021 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Shadowing of Caregiver Is Generally Related to Anxiety or Fear
Photo credit Anthony Metcalf
Dear Carol: My mother, 78, lives with us. She has Alzheimer’s and it was going all right until lately, but now it’s gotten so that she follows me around the house all the time. She can’t stand losing sight of me, even when I want to use the bathroom. I know I can’t handle this long-term. My husband is good with her and would sit with her while I get a little peace, but that doesn’t help. She still needs to have me in her sight. Do you have any suggestions? – KJ
Continue reading on Inforum to learn more about shadowing and how to manage it:
Minding Our Elders: Caregivers...
Source: Minding Our Elders - March 14, 2021 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Palliative Care Or Hospice Care: If You're Confused You Aren't Alone
Dear Carol: ... I ask about how I can make her life better at this stage. She has an inhaler for her lungs, but they don’t seem willing to prescribe medications or advice other than keep her comfortable. Well, how do I go about that? Should she be on hospice? I’ve heard of something called palliative care, but I don’t understand it and no doctor has mentioned it. Can you help me?
Continue reading on Egosancares blog for more insight into both services so that you'll know where to start when lack of comfort is an issue:
Egosan wants to help you live your life fully: Try Egosan premium underwear for discre...
Source: Minding Our Elders - March 12, 2021 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
The ultimate in patient empowerment: advance care planning
Some years ago, my husband and I sat with his mother at her kitchen table and went over advance care planning documents her doctor had given her. She was in her mid-70s then, living independently but managing several chronic health issues. The documents included a living will, which specified the kind of care she wished […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 9, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/patricia-mctiernan" rel="tag" > Patricia McTiernan < /a > < /span > Tags: Patient Palliative Care Source Type: blogs
Improving end of life care from the start of training
Physicians have gone toe-to-toe with death since the earliest days of the profession, even knowing that our efforts would often be futile. Over the past century, dramatic technological advances have nearly doubled the average American lifespan, and modern practitioners have a level of control over mortality previous generations could scarcely have imagined. But medicine has […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 4, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/kaci-mccleary" rel="tag" > Kaci McCleary, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Physician Palliative Care Source Type: blogs
Pallimed GeriPal Virtual Gathering 2021
by Christian Sinclair (@ctsinclair)Short notice, but yes, there will be a Pallimed/GeriPal virtual party this year.Never missed a year! Have we planned a lot around this? No. Do we want to see friends and colleagues and meet new people? Yes. Can we do it with minimal expectations? We hope so!We are not sure what to expect, but when we did this in person there was never that much of a plan anyway, except where to go next, and even that was up for improvisation.So what might we do. Probably hang out in different Zoom rooms talking about different subjects, playing games, talking about palliative care things, or maybe not pal...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - February 17, 2021 Category: Palliative Care Tags: geripal sinclair Source Type: blogs
Death is personal for this physician [PODCAST]
“In Wooster, Ohio, where I practiced, a small not-for-profit hospice agency relied on local physicians, clergy, and many other volunteers to supplement the skills and dedication of their employed staff. It was through this work with Hospice of Wayne County, in making home visits when needed, that I learned the immeasurable value of presence. By […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - February 1, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/the-podcast-by-kevinmd" rel="tag" > The Podcast by KevinMD < /a > < /span > Tags: Podcast Palliative Care Source Type: blogs
Confronting Stigma From Opioid Use Diorder in Cancer Care
by Fitzgerald Jones, Ho, Sager, Rosielle and MerlinHave you ever been so distressed by a perspective piece that it kept you up at night? The type of rumination that fills you with so much angst that you have no choice but to act. This is exactly how we felt when we read theAAHPM Quarterly Winter 2020 Let ’s Think About It Again.1 (member paywall)The column, which is structured as a sort of written debate in which two authors argue a clinical question, describes a case of a 45-year-old man with severe substance use disorder (SUD) recently diagnosed with extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer. He was offered aggr...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - January 30, 2021 Category: Palliative Care Tags: ftigerald jones ho merlin rosielle sager Source Type: blogs
Confronting Stigma From Opioid Use Disorder in Cancer Care
by Fitzgerald Jones, Ho, Sager, Rosielle and MerlinHave you ever been so distressed by a perspective piece that it kept you up at night? The type of rumination that fills you with so much angst that you have no choice but to act. This is exactly how we felt when we read theAAHPM Quarterly Winter 2020 Let ’s Think About It Again.1 (member paywall)The column, which is structured as a sort of written debate in which two authors argue a clinical question, describes a case of a 45-year-old man with severe substance use disorder (SUD) recently diagnosed with extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer. He was offered aggr...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - January 30, 2021 Category: Palliative Care Tags: ftigerald jones ho merlin rosielle sager Source Type: blogs
Fostering Student Interest in Palliative Care
by Christian Sinclair (@ctsinclair)Most palliative care teams love to have medical students on service, but the access may be variable. Some schools make palliative care rotations mandatory, some optional, while others make it hard to find or " build your own. " I do outpatient palliative care, so I see medical students less often than my inpatient colleagues, but we do get a number of nursing students, pharmacy residents, psychology learners rotating with our clinic at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Having learners rotate is an excellent way to teach primary palliative care skills, to help learners early in thei...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - January 29, 2021 Category: Palliative Care Tags: learner sinclair student Source Type: blogs
Stomach Cancer Stage 4 Treatment
Stomach cancer stage 4 is a complex diagnosis. It is the stage of cancer that requires specific treatment options.
Is surgery an option for patients with stomach cancer stage 4?
Stage 4 stomach cancer is characterized by rapid tumor growth, metastasizing to regional lymph nodes and distant organs (liver, bones, pancreas, less often lungs). With the development of metastases in other organs, characteristic symptoms occur such as jaundice and liver failure with liver damage, ascites with metastases in the peritoneum, bowel obstruction with metastases in the small intestine, etc.
Therefore, at the advanced stages, ga...
Source: PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement - January 22, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Booking Health Tags: health and fitness self-improvement cancer stomach cancer treatment Source Type: blogs
